THE distraught husband of Spooks actress Keeley Hawes today said his main priority in life was to look after the couple's 20-month- old son after his wife left home to begin an affair with Matthew Macfadyen, her co-star in the TV spy drama .

Fighting back tears, 30-year-old cartoon designer Spencer McCallum said: I wish her luck," But added: "I'll always be a normal fulltime parent and good dad."

Mr McCallum described himself as an "ordinary Joe Bloggs" who had been thrust into the limelight without his approval and wanted no part of what he described as "my wife's nightmare".

He was speaking after it emerged Hawes, 26, his wife of only five months, had moved out of their pounds 350,000 Victorian cottage in Esher and moved to central London to be closer to Macfadyen.

Confirming the couple had split the BBC said: "Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes became friends during the filming of Spooks and began a relationship a short time ago.

Today Mr McCallum said he was now concentrating on bringing up son Myles at home on his own. He said:

"I wish her luck. I've never courted publicity and have never wanted to ride off my wife's success and don't want to be famous myself. That's my wife's occupation, I'm just a full time dad and average Joe Bloggs and all this is my wife's nightmare. Good or bad this sort of thing is not what I do."

Asked if he was disappointed about the affair he replied: "Whatever happens I'll always be a normal fulltime parent and a good dad. I'm not famous that's what I do."

Insiders on the set of the BBC1 drama said Hawes and Macfadyen became close while playing undercover MI5 agents in the hit programme. Sources at the BBC said it was "only a matter of time" before a relationship began between the two because of the obvious attraction between them.

Hawes and Mr McCallum had been together four years, and friends for at least a year before that, prior to their wedding at Marylebone Register Office in December.

It is understood they had been planning to get married two years before that but postponed the ceremony when Hawes fell pregnant with Myles.

Hawes moved out of the Esher home in March and is now thought to be seeing Mr Macfadyen, 27, on a regular basis. A rising star at the BBC, she played Diana Dors in ITV production The Blonde Bombshell. She was also in dramas The Beggar Bride, Wives and Daughters and Our Mutual Friend.

Macfadyen, who until recently was going out with actress Surita Chowdry, was in BBC2's Perfect Strangers and an adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now.

Spooks has been a ratings hit. Its mix of fast-paced action and attractive stars has seen it average 8.5 million viewers.