A MUM who claimed her child had cancer to steal from a charity for a tragic three-year-old boy landed herself back in court for a fake wedding scam.
Charlotte Blackwell claimed the youngster was receiving palliative care and set up a GoFundMe for help.
Caring Natalie Ridler, 33, offered to help after her own son Morgan died of a rare liver cancer just days before his fourth birthday.
Blackwell stole £4,000 from the Morgan’s Army Charitable Foundation, which has raised thousands to help other families.
She avoided jail after admitting fraud and was instead handed a ten month sentenced suspended for 21 months.
But Blackwell has now been hauled before the courts again after she invented a fake wedding to steal from her family.
The mum begged members of the supposed wedding party for cash under a lie she was planning a ceremony abroad.
She had got engaged to Daniel Thomas in February 2022 and soon began planning for the overseas nuptials.
Blackwell scammed her then-fiancé’s mother Paula Thomas, out of £3,296.
She also stole from three of Paula’s friends – Helen Morse, who paid £3,311, Sue Chapman, who paid £3,272, and Tracey Roberts, who paid £2,803 – coming to a total of £12,682.
Blackwell provided the wedding party with fake flight confirmations, fake emails from travel agents and fake bank transactions.
But her future mother-in-law became suspicious when she noticed spelling mistakes on the documents so went to TUI to check.
The travel agency confirmed the booking was fake the reference used related to a different holiday for an elderly couple that took place the year prior.
When Blackwell was arrested, she admitted she had been “falsely arranging” a wedding to pay off her gambling debts.
She pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud but avoided jail after a court mistake meant her two scams were not linked together.
Blackwell instead received a 12-month prison term suspended for 18 months.
She was also ordered to pay £3,500 in compensation to three of her victims and £3,250 to the fourth.
Sentencing, Judge Jonathan Rees KC slammed the “fiction” and “pack of lies” created by Blackwell in her “shameful” frauds.
Her heartless charity swindle saw Blackwell target the charity just months after Morgan’s death.
The youngster died on June 28 2023 after being diagnosed with a rare and complex form of cancer in October 2021 at the age of two.
His mum and dad shared his brave fight against the disease on the Morgan’s Army social media pages and raised tens of thousands for charity.
Cardiff Crown Court was told Blackwell’s child had previously been ill when she made the false claim they had relapsed.
The mum contacted Natalie about receiving help from the charity and said the family were raising money for treatment in Germany.
As the child had previously received cancer treatment, they passed the charity’s initial checks.
Morgan’s Army donated to the fundraising page but Natalie learned Blackwell had also been directly messaging her own supporters asking for money.
The mum investigated further and discovered Blackwell had callously lied about her child having cancer.
Thankfully, all the finds were frozen and recovered so the charity lost no money.
In a victim impact statement, Natalie said Blackwell had “preyed on us at one of our most vulnerable periods, emotionally manipulated us and took advantage of the situation”.
She added: “They had behaved abhorrently over a number of weeks, knowing they were lying and knowing they were taking advantage of me.
“They had essentially groomed me for two weeks while my heart was breaking for them.”
