Couples’ agony after being swindled out of thousands just hours before wedding as ‘heartless’ scammer jailed for 5 years
A HEARTLESS wedding planner who shamelessly duped couples out of £60,000 was yesterday jailed for five years.
Scheming Dana Twidale, 44, swindled brides and grooms after promising non-existent wedding decorations, flowers and catering.
Many of them found out just days - even hours - before their big day, the court was told.
Twisted Twidale used their cash to fund her gambling addiction and pay for a month-long holiday to Spain.
One of the 24 couples she conned found they had no food for their reception the night before their wedding day.
Heartbroken Jason and Nicky Asquith-Thorpe, of Harrogate, North Yorks, lost £2,247.
They turned up at their venue to find out their marquee, tables and chairs had been taken away.
The heartbroken couple told the court: "I don’t know how anyone with any moral compass would do this to anybody.
"How can you be so heartless as to make arrangements to provide goods and services for such an important day to take their money, knowing they are not going to deliver."
Speaking after the hearing Jason said: "The sentence was more than I expected. I was expecting three or four years. When the judge said five I was absolutely elated.
"Justice has been served and for the right reasons. It would have been more if she had not pleaded guilty.
"We had left everything for her to arrange apart from the church and the photographer - luckily.
"If it had not been for friends, family and the community rallying around the day would have been ruined.
"Regardless of everything that happened, I think we ended up having a better day than we had would have under the wedding plan.
"We were determined to get married on that day. I said 'If it comes to it we will have the ceremony and then everyone can have pizzas on The Stray (the local park).'"
The couple were completely taken in after spotting on line adverts for the company and meeting its boss.
Nicky, 33, an NHS pharmacist, said: "I felt like I had known her forever. She was so friendly and lovely - and so helpful.
"It just shows how deceitful she was. All we wanted was a simple marquee and summer party. We had invited 104 guests It was going to be really nice."
Another couple, Zoe and Gary Giles, found out they had lost £550 the night before their wedding.
Zoe, 46, who works in retail, and Gary, 50, who works in security, and who live in the East Riding village of Bishop Wilton, were devastated.
Zoe said: "We had been planning everything from 18 months before and paid the £550 in full.
"That is not a lot compared to what some people have lost but it was a lot of money to us.
"We found out at 7.30 the night before we were due to get married.
"We were told she had done a runner. The local landlady of our local pub, The Fleece, where we had the reception went out and sorted the flowers.
"Some of them came from an elderly man who had an allotment so every table was covered. It was lovely the way the community came together and saved the day."
Bride Jade Savage was duped out of £620 and had to sacrifice her honeymoon.
Leah Wilkinson, who lost £1,050 after discovering Twidale had not paid for the car or cake, said: "It still causes me stress.
"I was pregnant at the time and just broke down crying. I can’t believe anyone can be so cold and tell lies like Dana”.
Prosecutor Dale Brook said Twidale's bank account was later frozen but she remained on the run for two years.
She was finally arrested after she was spotted working for a takeaway in her native Hull, East Yorks.
Mr Brook added: "She engaged in a campaign of planned and callous frauds."
Twidale previously admitted 26 offences of fraud by false representation between August 2017 and July 2019.
Many of the furious couples let down by the 'wedding scammer' were at court to see her jailed.
Sentencing her Judge Mark Bury, said: "You of all people would have known how special these bride’s days were going to be.
"Many of them had to beg and borrow from family members to get them to fulfil the obligations you were supposed to fulfil.
HEARTLESS LIES
"These frauds, all 24 of them, amount to £15,000, not, in the grand scheme of things, a great amount of money.
"But to each of these victims it meant a lot.
"The majority of them had saved and scrimped and gone without to pay you to make their day special and you went on to Spain with the money.
"It is a minor miracle that none of these wedding was completely ruined because they had the foresight to do something about it, but it’s blighted their days, one of their best days of their lives has been affected by you."
A Facebook group was set up by furious couples with hundreds of members revealing their own heartbreaking stories in 2019.
Ex-boyfriends also claimed she had tricked them into handing over cash - including one who alleged she stole £42,000 from him.
Nigel Wainwright, whose dad had just died, believed Twidale's lies she was being abuse by the boyfriend she lived with - when she in fact lived alone.
After she used make-up to fake injuries, he took out nine loans to help her escape her "situation" during their ten-month relationship.
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He also handed her money to help pay for her mum's funeral even though she was "alive and well" in an "abhorrent and cunning" lie.
But it was Mr Wainwright who called police after growing suspicious of her lies.
After she was arrested, Twidale claimed she was "chasing her losses" after she started gambling when she got into debt.
Her ex-husband Carl, who claimed she took money from him, previously branded her "wicked and twisted".
Speaking after she pleaded guilty in May, he said: "It has been really tough. I've lived my life in the darkness with no lights on and it has been tough.
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"I've had threats and I've had to hide my car just in case but on the plus side I've had other victims say 'we know you had no involvement and we want to stay friends'."
