Ditched fiance tried to win back ex... by posing as ghost of her mother
WHEN Roy Meadwell was ditched by his fiancee, he decided to win her back – by sending a fake letter from her dead mother singing his praises from beyond the grave.
The note to Kay Wimbury had supposedly been dictated to a psychic.
It spoke glowingly of ‘the man who sacrificed everything for you’ and even referred to a Christmas decoration her mother, Sandra, had given her. It added that Miss Wimbury had made a terrible mistake by rejecting Meadwell, and reminded her how he had helped fix her car and been on hand when she moved to Cornwall, adding that he was ‘the man who loves you, the man who wanted you to be his wife’. It went on: ‘All you have to do is call him.’ Another anonymous message gushed: ‘OMG, can’t you see the greatness in this man?’ He was also lauded in a Facebook message and an email from someone with almost exactly the same name as her stepmother, Jan Wimbury.
But the 51-year-old warehouseman’s ruse didn’t stand a ghost of a chance – because Miss Wimbury, 48, realised straight away it was from him, and called the police.
Exeter Crown Court heard that personal details in the letter convinced her that only Meadwell could have sent it. Brian Fitzherbert, prosecuting, told the jury: ‘The final paragraphs of the first letter purports to be a message from her dead mother. It was a message from beyond the grave imploring her to take Meadwell back.’
The deception came back to haunt Meadwell yesterday as he was given a suspended fourmonth prison sentence – and warned he would be jailed if he contacted Miss Wimbury, of Newlyn, Cornwall. When he sent the note – an anonymous letter posted with a leaflet he picked up from Willow Moon tarot shop in Tintagel, Cornwall – he was already subject to a restraining order banning him from the county or contacting Miss Wimbury after he battered her when their relationship ended in late 2016.
But police discovered he had visited the shop, breaching the restraining order.
Meadwell, of Yeovil, Somerset – who had been sent on a domestic violence course following an incident involving another partner in March last year – denied five charges of breaking a restraining order but was found guilty of four. He was acquitted of sending the Facebook post.