A SEDGLEY woman who left hundreds of brides-to-be in the lurch when she gambled away money she had been paid to “add gloss” to their weddings has been jailed.

Sarah Cawthorne, who ruined the special day of couples across the country, also splashed out customers cash on an expensive family holiday to Florida.

The mother-of-two who pocketed in excess of £30,000 advertised her wedding services on Facebook and on her own A Little Bit of Bling website.

She offered wedding packages as well as items including candy carts and chocolate fountains to help married couples enjoy their big day but the money she was paid was gambled away on online betting sites.

Cawthorne took the couple’s money and simply did not turn up in what was a year long “persistent, systematic and very, very mean fraud,” said Mark Jackson, prosecuting.

“The first that some of the brides knew was when they got a call from their wedding venues as they were about to walk down the aisle, telling them their reception rooms were bare,” he added.

Mr Jackson said Cawthorne took bookings to “dress” six weddings on the same day, in places including Cornwall, Rotherham, Kidderminster and Bolton, but she had no intention of attending any of the events.

She was arrested after the first of what was to be an “avalanche of complaints” to Trading Standards about the activities of her Little Bit of Bling company and angry customers set up their own Facebook page called Burned Brides.

“Analysis of her bank statements show that she used her customers money to gamble on online betting sites,” said Mr Jackson.

And when she was supposedly in an all day meeting to help one of her brides on an urgent matter her bank statements showed seven cash transfers to betting sites.

She then maintained to one of her angry customers she was suffering from ill health but it did not stop her from gambling away her customers money.

In July 2013 she made 118 cash transfers to one online gambling site, another 38 the following month and, on one day alone, she transferred £2,490 to one account.

Mr Jackson told Wolverhampton Crown Court that over a 20 day period Cawthorne made 129 separate cash transfers to gambling sites involving over £70,000.

Cawthorne, of Hickmerelands Lane, admitted fraudulent trading and she was told by Judge Martin Walsh, “An aggravating feature of the case is the distress caused as a result of wedding days being tarnished if not ruined.”

The judge told the 32-year-old, who sobbed throughout the hearing, he accepted she had not set up the business for the purposes of fraud but there came a time when she became dishonest to feed her gambling addiction.

Mukhtar Ubhi defending said Cawthorne had been in the grip of the addiction and large amounts of money were being gambled away to try and recoup her losses.

“It did not start out fraudulently to ruin the weddings of all these people,” he added. “Her addiction to gambling got on top of her.”

After the case Christopher King, Dudley’s Principal Trading Officer, said he was delighted at the one-year prison sentence handed out to Cawthorne.

“We hope this will act as a deterrent to anyone else considering scamming members of the public,” said Mr King. “The people she targeted were vulnerable as they planned their special day and it was a particularly mean scam.”

He said that while some of the sums of money pocketed by Cawthorne were not significant she had caused considerable damage to the brides-to-be as they made arrangements for their weddings.