Fake cancer bride used £8k donations to pay for wedding
A SHAMELESS woman who faked having terminal cancer to con friends into donating almost £8,500 for her dream wedding has been jailed for five months.
Toni Standen, 29, shaved her head and told friends and family: ‘It’s gone to my brain, my bones – it’s everywhere.’
Standen, of Widnes, Cheshire, first told friends she had ovarian cancer in 2015. She said she wanted her father Derek, 57 – who really was dying of cancer – to walk her down the aisle.
Derek died before the big day but a video he recorded was played at the wedding, leaving guests in tears.
Her friends had launched a GoFundMe web page to give Standen and her partner James, 52, the ‘wedding they deserve’. Chester Magistrates’ Court heard how Standen gave regular updates on her fake illness with ‘such clarity and detail’ that friends never questioned her condition.
One donor gave £2,000 and Standen received numerous gifts and cards with cash inside.
The wedding at St Bede’s Catholic Church, Widnes, was followed by a reception for 150 guests, before the couple jetted off on honeymoon to Turkey.
But suspicion grew about her condition following the wedding, the court heard, and Standen confessed her cancer diagnosis was a lie to friends in April.
Jobless Standen pleaded guilty last month to fraud by false representation between February last year and this April. Judge Nicholas Sanders said: ‘Every right-thinking member of society would be appalled by your behaviour.’