A British bride who faked terminal cancer to raise $ 11,000 for the wedding of her dreams was sentenced this week to five months in prison.
“All members of society who think correctly would be dismayed by your behavior,” District Judge Nicholas Sanders told Toni Standen, 29, as he sentenced her Tuesday in Chester Magistrates’ Court, according to Sun.
“Fortunately, it is not uncommon for this court to convict someone who has shown a degree of shamelessness, greed, or betrayal of friendship as you did to your friends and the entire community,” the judge told him.
“It was such their embarrassment that he continued to take money from them for many, many months,” he told Standen, who was also ordered to return to a local businessman nearly $ 2,700 he had given.
As of July 2017, Standen had claimed he was only two months old, saying about his pretending cancer, “It’s gone to my brain, to my bones, it’s everywhere.”
She shaved her head, updated friends with so much “clarity and detail” that they didn’t hesitate, and even gave interviews to two newspapers, according to the Liverpool Echo, one of the papers she cheated on.
Friends launched a GoFundMe page to give the couple “a wedding they deserve,” with Standen accepting more than $ 11,000 for his big day, as well as a honeymoon in Turkey, the Magistrates Court reported. Chester.
James, her “unpretentious,” 52-year-old husband, was among those cheated when they finally got married last summer at a Catholic church in Widnes, according to Sun.
Pals finally became suspicious this year after Standen inexplicably challenged his “condition” to travel around Europe and then claimed to have COVID-19, according to the Sun.
Two friends confronted her during a three-way phone call, during which Standen admitted that “everything was lies,” according to reports.
“I’m embarrassed and heartbroken and I’m struggling right now,” she sent a text message to friends, according to Echo.
“Right now I don’t know if Jim and I will divorce, I don’t blame her if she does and I don’t blame them both if this is the end,” she said, seemingly confirming that her husband hadn’t been aware of the scam.
Her husband supported her in court when she finally admitted she was a liar, the Mirror pointed out.