A VULNERABLE woman who married a sex offender behind bars is battling to stop York social workers interfering with their relationship.

A test case involving City of York Council reached London’s Appeal Court yesterday as lawyers challenged a judge’s ruling that the woman “lacks capacity to decide whether to resume her married life”.

The woman, referred to as “X”, began seeing the man before he was convicted and jailed for more than a decade for a series of grave sex offences, including incitement to commit bestiality and procuring a woman for prostitution.

Despite his sordid crimes, she stood by him and the couple wed while he was in prison. He became her third husband.

Court of Protection judge Mr Justice Hedley ruled last year that it was “in her best interests” to undergo a “phased transition” before being allowed to resume cohabitation with him, in line with a care plan drawn up by the council, and he authorised social workers to split the couple up if they spotted an “imminent and serious threat to her welfare”.

Challenging that ruling, Paul Bowen QC, representing “X”, said she had only “mild” learning difficulties and had lived “more or less independently” since leaving school.

The court heard she had twice divorced “abusive” spouses. Each time, she was able to “extricate herself from the relationship”.

After protracted investigations by social workers, the council had accepted she was able to choose whether to have sex with her husband and suggested the best way forward was for the relationship to be tightly monitored.

Mr Bowen attacked as fundamentally flawed Mr Justice Hedley’s decision that X lacked the legal capacity to decide for herself whether to cohabit with her own husband.

A decision on the appeal was reserved until a later date.