A bride who conned her maid of honour out of £27,000 with false promises of a share in a bogus multi-million pound inheritance has been jailed.
On her wedding day, Angela Kitchener told best friend Nicola Reynolds she was about to receive more than £5million from the sale of her ex-husband’s haulage business.
She pledged her gratitude to her friend, at 54 years old, that she would repay her mortgage and pay down her debts. It painted a picture for a happy future with luxury vacations and new cars.
Angela Kitchener (pictured above on Angela’s wedding day) admitted fraud to both counts. Angela wept during her three-and a half year sentence
She later asked mother-of-five Miss Reynolds to be the guarantor on a £10,000 loan, telling her she would pay it back when the £5million came through.
Kitchener ‘said she would pay off her debts and mortgage and she and her children would have a good life’, said prosecutor Maryan Almhod at Sheffield Crown Court.
Kitchener was a quality assessment specialist for a defense contractor for many months and kept making excuses as to why it hadn’t happened. She claimed she was just waiting for the money to transfer.
Taken in, Miss Reynolds, 41, agreed to help tide her over, buying her friend a new sofa and television plus £1,000 worth of clothes from Next.
Kitchener also claimed she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer but was keeping the truth from her fiancé Paul, whom she wed in November 2017.
The following year Kitchener told Miss Reynolds that her first husband had been killed in a farming accident and her pay-out was up to £77million but extra paperwork was delaying the money.
On her wedding day, Kitchener (left) told best friend Nicola Reynolds she was about to receive more than £5million from the sale of her ex-husband’s haulage business
Miss Reynolds is a partner in a catering firm and became suspicious that Kitchener had gotten another friend to loan her money.
Some amateur detective work revealed that far from owning a haulage business, her ex-husband simply drove lorries for it – and his new wife confirmed that he was alive and well.
Barnsley resident Kitchener admitted to two fraud charges and was sentenced last Friday for three-and-a half years. Judge David Dixon told her she was a ‘fantasist’ who had concocted ‘blatant lies’ to defraud her best friend.
Her victim, however, is out of luck. Kitchener’s court hearings show that Kitchener doesn’t have any income to repay her.
Afterwards Miss Reynolds said: ‘She was like family to me. I hope she will finally begin to realise the pain, hurt and suffering that she has caused.’