Here come the brides... to seize dresses from shop fraudster
IRATE brides-to-be stormed a Limerick bridal store owned by a convicted fraudster this week after failing to receive the dresses they had ordered for their weddings.
Robelle Bridal, which opened last December in Annacotty, is now subject to a Garda investigation as dozens of brides, who with their wedding days looming, have allegedly been left up to €1,500 out of pocket after they paid deposits for dresses they have yet to receive.
Gardaí in Limerick confirmed they have received a number of complaints and are investigating the matter. More than ten brides stormed the shop on Monday taking whatever sample dresses they could from the store, after waiting for their own dresses, which they claim never arrived. The boutique owner, Shirley Flanagan, who has been accused of failing to hand over dresses to the brides-to-be yesterday said she is ‘mad to tell her side of the story’ but can’t because of legal advice.
A number of Ms Flanagan’s customers went online to vent their fury after claiming they had not received their bridal gowns for their big days, despite parting with thousands of euro in deposits. In March 2013 Ms Flanagan, a former trainee teacher, was convicted of fraud before Limerick District Court.
Several customers waited outside the shop yesterday in the hope of meeting her. On Monday, she sent a representative to the store to meet with one bride to receive a sample dress, rather than the one ordered.
A number of other brides then stormed the premises with members of their bridal party, and claimed a number of dresses. One bride man-
‘My wedding is in September’
aged to flee with three dresses as she made her way to Henry Street Garda station to file a complaint.
‘I contacted the designer of the dress [Sophia Tolli] in the UK this week,’ explained one bride.
‘She told me that this store is not one of their stockists and hasn’t been for some time. I made my way up from Tralee this morning, after making an appointment with Shirley. She keeps making excuses. She says she’s with her solicitor and is afraid to come to the store because of death threats against her. My wed- ding is in September and I have no dress. I’m gutted. I’m sickened.’
Yesterday, another anxious customer said she had paid Ms Flanagan a €1,500 deposit on a dress nearly a month ago, but was now worried she would never see the dress.
The young lady who did not wish to be named said: ‘I’m in limbo.’
The store was closed yesterday with no sign of Ms Flanagan all day, however a notice on the door read: ‘We are open seven days. By appointment only.’
The father of another bride-to-be said his daughter met with Ms Flanagan and eventually received a dress similar to the kind she had ordered.
At her fraud trial in 2013, Judge Eugene O’Kelly heard Ms Flanagan swindled five men employed in her father’s taxi firm in an insurance scam. She admitted committing the fraud to pay her mortgage, which had fallen into arrears. She has since lost the house. Ms Flanagan pleaded guilty to five counts of deception and two counts of knowingly using a false insurance disc with the intention of inducing others to accept it as genuine. She admitted, dishonestly and by deception, inducing five men to give her money on the pretence they would be issued with a valid motor insurance policy .