Charlotte Blackwell narrowly avoided prison after she defrauded her then-fiancé’s mother and family friends – and they have now accused her of flouting the judge’s orders
The victims of a serial fraudster have revealed they’ve received a mere £100 of the £13,750 she was ordered to pay them seven months ago after a ‘fake wedding’ scam was uncovered.
Charlotte Blackwell, hailing from Bridgend, narrowly dodged prison after conning her then-fiancé’s mother and family friends – who now accuse her of ignoring the judge’s orders.
The 31-year-old, previously let off the hook for fraud against a children’s cancer charity, concocted fictitious wedding plans in a ploy to clear her gambling debts. From 2022 to 2024, she swindled £12,682 from members of the supposed wedding party under the guise it was for a planned ceremony in Turkey.
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The four victims were her then-fiancé’s mother Paula Thomas, who shelled out £3,296, and three of Ms Thomas’ mates – Helen Morse, Sue Chapman, and Tracey Roberts, who paid £3,311, £3,272, and £2,803 respectively. In March, Blackwell was given a suspended prison sentence, unpaid work, and an order to pay £3,500 in compensation to each of Ms Thomas, Ms Chapman and Ms Morse, and £3,250 to Ms Roberts, to “reflect the additional aggravation and distress” she inflicted on them.
Weeping with apparent relief, Blackwell assured the judge she would repay at a rate of £400 a month. However, the victims claim they have since received just £25.45 each – from a single payment made in early July, reported Wales Online. Blackwell found herself back in Cardiff Crown Court last week, slapped with a £200 fine for failing to attend numerous unpaid work appointments. This added insult to injury for her victims who are still awaiting their long overdue compensation.
Ms Morse, who is employed at a GP surgery, expressed her disbelief to WalesOnline: “I was absolutely shocked to see she’d been in court again. You think, ‘How much can she do before she is properly penalised?’ When Charlotte got engaged to Paula’s son Daniel we all welcomed her, we went out with her a few times, and it turned out she was taking money from us for a wedding that didn’t exist.
“At one point we wondered why she hadn’t bought her wedding dress because it wasn’t long before the wedding date, and we were saying, ‘You need to get a move on’. She then cancelled the wedding claiming she was ill. But I was 50 that year so my partner and I still wanted to go to Turkey.”
Ms Morse visited the travel agency Blackwell claimed to have used, TUI, and asked staff for the details of her holiday. “The girls in TUI were fantastic,” Ms Morse praised. “They were trying to ring a wedding coordinator who didn’t exist. They spent an hour trying to help me but eventually they came back and said, ‘Nothing’s been booked.’
“You trust people, don’t you? This has made us really cautious now in everything we do. It’s sad but we feel like we wouldn’t trust anybody again.”
Last week Ms Morse contacted the Ministry of Justice for an update on the compensation. She says they told her they would “look into the income” of Blackwell and that “these things can take time”. Ms Morse took on a second job as a cleaner to help fund the “holiday” devised by Blackwell.
“It’s quite frustrating for us all, how she seems to be getting away with it,” said Ms Morse. “We just think that we’re the victims and we’re not getting anything. Even if they dropped it to £25 a month each, then so be it, but to not be getting anything is not fair on us as the victims.”
The fraud had included fake flight confirmations, fake emails from travel agents, and fake bank transactions. Blackwell even created fake email accounts to make it seem like she had been communicating with agents. Blackwell, of Ffordd Y Draen in Coity, pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud over the wedding con.
In the March sentencing her barrister Alice Sykes said: “She was going through a difficult time after her daughter had been diagnosed with brain cancer. She gave up work to deal with the money issues that came with that and gambled to try to get money back.
“She then placed blocks on websites to prevent gambling and has taken steps to prevent that happening again. “She has two children aged 10 and three. She works full-time as an estate agent earning £1,700 a month and receives Universal Credit.”
Blackwell had previously dodged a prison sentence in August after another scam where she attempted to swindle the children’s cancer charity, Morgan’s Army, out of £4,000. As reported then, Blackwell was handed a suspended 10-month sentence after falsely claiming her daughter required expensive treatment in Germany, when in fact, she was in remission from cancer.
For this charity fraud, Blackwell received a suspended 10-month prison sentence, 180 hours of unpaid work, 10 days of rehabilitation activity and a four-month curfew restricting her from leaving her home at night. Simultaneously, she was involved in a wedding scam for which she was given a suspended 12-month jail term, 120 hours of unpaid work and five days of rehabilitation activity.
Morgan’s Army, the charity she conned, was established by the parents of Morgan Ridler, a three year old who tragically died of cancer. Blackwell targeted the charity – which aids south Wales families impacted by childhood cancer – just months after Morgan’s passing in June 2023.
She was given £4,000 for treatment her daughter allegedly needed. However, Morgan’s mother Natalie Ridler, from Swansea, revealed: “It transpired that some years ago, a child of the individual had suffered with cancer and was treated at Noah’s Ark [children’s hospital] which was why they slipped through our initial checks.
“However, they had been in remission for some time with no active treatment, no terminal prognosis, and were in layman’s terms ‘all clear’.”
She added that the fraudster had “preyed on us at one of our most vulnerable periods”. Following the discovery of the deception, the £4,000 was frozen and retrieved.
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: “We take the recovery and enforcement of financial penalties very seriously, as we know how important it is that victims get what they are owed. We can take money directly from an offender’s benefits or salaries or issue a warrant to seize offenders’ possessions if needed.”
Blackwell refused to comment.