A British grandfather, who is currently languishing in a Florida jail cell for allegedly attempting to drown his daughter-in-law in a swimming pool, was reportedly in a ‘secret’ relationship with the mother of his grandchildren for multiple years.
62-year-old Mark Gibbon, the owner of a film and television firm, was arrested on Sunday, August 3, at the Solterra Resort, near Disney World, after other hotel guests witnessed the incident and called police. The divorced grandfather had been staying at the resort with Jasmine Wyld, 33, alongside the two children from her marriage to his son.
Local media indicates that the pair had been drinking by the pool when, after 5pm, they began arguing over the “stipulations of his will”, leading to violence that ended with Gibbon allegedly trying to hold Wyld’s head under the water of the swimming pool. A nine-year-old girl, believed to be her daughter, unsuccessfully attempted to come to her aid.
Sources from within the family informed MailOnline that they had engaged in a private relationship for the past two years. They supposedly grew close after Gibbon divorced his wife and Wyld split from his son, Alex, 34, in 2021.
Under interrogation by US police following the public incident, both Wyld and father-in-law Gibbon denied a romantic partnership, an official told the Sun.
However, the family source said: “Mark and Jasmine have been seeing each other for a few years, but they’ve never admitted it.
“[The couple] do an awful lot together and they go away on holiday with the children a couple of times every year.
“They went to Florida two years ago and have been to Budapest where she posted pictures of them together like a couple.”
However, their tragic family holiday to Florida, without Gibbon’s son Alex, comes just a year after the 34-year-old was jailed for hitting his father with a Porsche Cayenne. The pair appear to have had a difficult relationship in recent years, with him leaving his father’s business after a row in 2023.
The elder Gibbon then renamed his business to MRG Lighting after his son’s resignation. The firm has worked with a series of stars, according to its website, including Paloma Faith and Ed Sheeran.
The Mail’s source within the family said the father and son are no longer on speaking terms. They added: “He feels an awful betrayal at how his dad has struck up a relationship with the mother of his two children.”
Apparently, Gibbon and hairdresser Wyld have spent a lot of time holed away together at an £800,000 semi-detached house in Beaconsfield, purchased in 203 after the 62-year-old businessman divorced his wife.
Mark Gibbon is also listed as the sole director of a business called Sage Hairdressing.
But now, both father and son sit behind bars, with Mark Gibbon facing serious prison time after he pushed Jasmine’s “under the water and held her down multiple times,” in the shocking alleged holiday attack.
The family source said: “I have been told that Jasmine was unhappy that they have been in a relationship for a few years and she is not named in his will.”
Florida police said the 33-year-old mother of two “could not breathe and believed that she was going to drown.” The said that she had to “fight Mark in order to get away from him and from under the water but he kept pushing her back under”.
Officials had harsh words for holidaymaker Gibbon. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said: “It’s great that Polk County draws visitors from all across the world, but we expect vacationers to behave while they visit with us, just as we expect our lifelong residents to do the same.”
“Because Mr Gibbon couldn’t control his anger, he may find himself spending a lot more time in Florida than he had anticipated.”
Gibbon will appear in court next month, September 9, facing an attempted second-degree murder charge and two counts of battery in connection with the incident.