Victims of a “heartless” fraudster are questioning why they have received only a tiny fraction of the amount she was ordered to pay them early last year. Charlotte Blackwell, from Bridgend, concocted fake wedding plans to scam her then-fiancé's mother and family friends.
In March 2025 a judge handed her a suspended prison sentence and ordered her to pay £13,750 in compensation to the four victims. When she realised she would be avoiding jail, Blackwell sobbed in relief and agreed to the judge's demand that she pay at a rate of £400 a month.
Last October we reported the victims' concerns that they had received only £25.45 each since that order was imposed seven months earlier. Now we can reveal matters have not improved.
Payments fall short
Since that time, Blackwell, a 32-year-old mother of two, has paid a paltry £15.30 to each of the victims – bringing the total amount paid so far to £163 – with no payments at all in the last four months. Whenever the victims have asked for updates from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), all they have been told is: “It's being dealt with.”
Almost a year ago, when we put the victims' concerns to the MoJ, we were assured it takes the enforcement of financial penalties “very seriously”. But there has still been no confirmation of any action against Blackwell.
One of those defrauded, Helen Morse, is owed almost £3,500. She told us: “We've just been left to wonder what's happening. We've sort of given up because there's nowhere for us to turn. It feels like she's being protected rather than the victims.”
The fraud scheme
Blackwell – who was previously spared jail for fraud against a children's cancer charity – made bogus wedding plans in a scheme to pay off her gambling debts. Between 2022 and 2024 she took £12,682 from members of the supposed wedding party under the pretence it was for a planned ceremony in Turkey.
The four victims were her then-fiancé's mother Paula Thomas, who paid £3,296, and three of Ms Thomas' friends – Helen Morse, who paid £3,311, Sue Chapman, who paid £3,272, and Tracey Roberts, who paid £2,803.
In the Cardiff Crown Court sentencing last year, she was ordered 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 caused them. She was also handed a suspended 12-month jail term, 120 hours of unpaid work and five days of rehabilitation activity.
Victims' frustration
During the hearing, Blackwell's barrister Alice Sykes said her client would be able to pay the compensation as she was working full-time as an estate agent on £1,700 a month as well as receiving universal credit.
Blackwell was back in court last October, landing financial penalties of £200 after failing to turn up for many of her unpaid work appointments.
Ms Morse, an admin worker at a GP surgery, previously told us: “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 saying she was ill. But I was 50 that year so my partner and I still wanted to go to Turkey.”
Ms Morse went into the travel agency Blackwell had supposedly used, Tui, and asked staff for the details of her holiday. “The girls in Tui were fantastic,” said Ms Morse. “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.”
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. Her barrister 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.”
Previous charity fraud
Blackwell had avoided jail the previous August after another fraud in which she tried to con the children's cancer charity Morgan's Army out of £4,000. She lied to the charity that her daughter needed costly treatment in Germany when in reality she was in remission from cancer.
For the charity swindle – which was happening at the same time as the wedding fraud – Blackwell was handed a suspended 10-month prison sentence, 180 hours of unpaid work, 10 days of rehabilitation activity, and a four-month curfew preventing her leaving home at night.
Morgan's Army, the charity she defrauded, was set up by the parents of Morgan Ridler, who died of cancer aged three. It supports south Wales families affected by childhood cancer.
Blackwell targeted the charity just months after Morgan's death in June 2023. She was provided with £4,000 for treatment her daughter supposedly needed. But Morgan's mother Natalie Ridler, from Swansea, said: “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 the fraudster had “preyed on us at one of our most vulnerable periods”. After the deception was discovered, the £4,000 was frozen and recovered.
Ms Morse, who had taken a second job as a cleaner to help pay for the bogus holiday, said: “It's very frustrating because, as victims, we should surely be informed of what's going on but we get the same non-answer every time we chase the Ministry of Justice.”
The MoJ told us it could not give specific details on enforcement due to data protection laws but did say: “These were heartless crimes. 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 offender's possessions if needed.”
The MoJ says people can be sent to prison if they fail to pay a penalty and the court has no means of recovering the amount owed. Blackwell was approached for comment.
