IT WAS billed as the ultimate fairytale wedding — if a little on the unconventional side.

Sean Carr, a former cobbler and heavy metal musician from Leeds, married Yevgeniya Tymoshenko, the daughter of the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, yesterday in a private ceremony at the 11th-century Vydubitskiy Monastery.

In brilliant sunshine, the 36-year-old lead singer with the Death Valley Screamers — now big in Ukraine — emerged with his bride, a 25-year-old London School of Economics student, to the incongruous sound of bagpipes mingling with the monastery’s bells.

The 6ft 4in biker had tied his shoulder-length hair back for the occasion and wore a crumpled cravat and embroidered waistcoat. In one hand he held a top hat and in the other an icon.

Yevgeniya, in a lacy skirt and top, clutched a stuffed pink pig with her flowers.

Tattooed Yorkshiremen mingled with the 100 well-wishers who chanted “Happiness! Happiness!” as the couple briefly posed for photographs and sipped champagne. Mr Carr smashed his glass on the pavement. This would probably have got him an ASBO back in Leeds, but here it was received with rapturous applause from Yuliya Tymoshenko, his new mother-in-law, who made an estimated $6 billion in the energy business in the 1990s and then co-led the Orange Revolution last year.

The newlyweds were then whisked off in a white Soviet GAZ Chaika limousine to a lavish reception at Krystal Palace, one of the most exclusive new restaurants in Kiev.

But the fairytale scenes were overshadowed by allegations from Mr Carr’s ex-partner, Emma Carr, 37, that he flew into drunken rages and beat her so badly in front of their daughter, Charlotte, then 7, that she had to wear dentures. Plans for a wedding in Britain have been put on hold since the revelations.

Ms Carr — who never married Mr Carr but changed her name by deed poll — said at her home in Otley, West Yorkshire: “I fell for him, so I can understand what she sees in him. He comes across as charming, self-confident and very magnetic, but he’s a very different person to live with.”

The attack, in the early hours of Christmas Day, was the last in a series that led to Mr Carr being given two years’ probation for assault in 2003.

If Mrs Tymoshenko disapproves of her daughter’s choice, she has been careful not to show it in public. She said recently: “I know him as a kind, educated and inspired person who loves my daughter very much, which is the most important thing.”

Svetlana Loza, 65, a well-wisher outside the monastery, said she was aware of the allegations but, like many Ukrainians, had a more tolerant attitude to domestic violence.

“That was his old life. This is his new life,” she said. “Sure, maybe he hit her. It happens.”

Ms Carr said: “I wish her [Yevgeniya] all the best. But she’s a beautiful, young, very eligible girl and I think she could have done an awful lot better — she could have had a decent man.”

THE ODD COUPLE

Yevgeniya Tymoshenko, 25

Sean Carr, 36

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