THE partner of a lorry driver who was recently killed in a road accident said she is going to hold his funeral in secret after discovering he had asked another woman to marry him.

THE partner of a lorry driver who was recently killed in a road accident said she is going to hold his funeral in secret after discovering he had asked another woman to marry him.

Tony Lloyd, 44, died when his silver Daewoo car was in collision with a Transit van on the Mersea Road at Langenhoe, near Colchester, on June 12. He died at the scene.

Two women said they have been left heartbroken after discovering he was dating them at the same time and had promised to marry them both.

Linda Sivill, 46, who pleaded for relatives of Mr Lloyd, her partner for the past two years, to come forward so she could lay him to rest, has been given permission to go ahead with the funeral arrangements, with the agreement of Mr Lloyd's mother.

She said she will hold his funeral next week at a secret time.

But the EADT can reveal a second woman, who did not want to be named, was planning to marry Mr Lloyd, after meeting him via a dating agency.

The 40-year-old from West Mersea, Essex, who has two daughters, said Mr Lloyd proposed to her on a trip to London on June 7 and was arranging a March wedding. She now fears neither woman will ever know the real truth.

She said: "I had known Tony for a short while after we met through a dating agency and he had told me Linda was an ex-partner. At the end of the day I don't want to argue with Linda because the only person who knows the truth is dead.

"I just wanted to find someone, and I believe I did, I have my memories of what Tony and I did and I will cherish them forever. We were planning to get married and spent a lot of time together recently. I am now just trying to come to terms with everything."

Mr Lloyd's friend Steve White, 42, of Ruislip, Middlesex, confirmed the relationship with the West Mersea woman.

He said: "Tony definitely wanted to marry her and asked me to be best man. I thought he had finished with Linda but I think perhaps she didn't know because he was scared to tell her."

Mr White said he and Lloyd became friends when they met on a cruise to Spain in March 2002.

He said Mr Lloyd told him his wife had died a year earlier when he lived in the Newbury area of Berkshire, he also claimed to have four grown up children, two boys and two girls.

"I think Tony has told some lies along the way, but he was great guy and very generous. He did have more than one girlfriend at a time, he had six in the time I knew him. Although he was a great friend I must admit there is something about Tony's past that just don't add up," he added.

Miss Sivill, of Raydon Way, Great Cornard, said she has spoken to Mr Lloyd's mother and been told to go ahead with the funeral.

She said: "She said he had been married three times, and had other woman in between, but he told me he had only been married once. I have also been told he has four children all from different woman.

"I am also upset to find out about this other woman from Mersea, because Tony asked me to marry him and I have still got the rings. I know he told lots of lies, but I am convinced he wanted to be with me and I am the one he wanted to marry. I still love him and I am going to give him a good funeral in private because I don't want any other women there."

Miss Sivill said they met two years ago when Mr Lloyd was travelling through Sudbury in his lorry and stopped to ask directions. She said he moved into her Great Cornard home a year later and they lived as man and wife ever since. She said Mr Lloyd became a "fantastic" step-father to her nine-year-old daughter Natalie.

A spokesman for Essex Police said: "We have now managed to trace next of kin and can confirm the man killed in the accident in Langenhoe was Tony Lloyd who lived at Raydon Way, Great Cornard."