Featured Image Credit: (Channel 4/ Sussex Police)
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Crime, TV, Channel 4
Brenna Cooper
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Crime, TV, Channel 4
Here are the first warning signs a woman noticed before making the devastating discovery that her husband-to-be didn't actually exist.
Seven years ago, Megan Clarke thought she'd found her 'happy ever after' after a charming stranger walked into the bar she was managing on the Isle of Wight - however, the romance would leave her devastated and in debt, after it turned out her fiancé hadn't been truthful about his life.
Aged just 20 at the time, Megan was swept off her feet by Lord Bertie Underwood. The pair moved into his lavish seafront home after enjoying dates in London and pricy gifts purchased from Harrods. After six months, Bertie would propose with a Cartier ring over Christmas.
However, the fairytale would come crashing down just two months before the couple were due to tie the knot.
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Alarm bells would go off in Megan's mind when she noticed letters arriving at their home addressed to names she had never heard before.
However, Bertie simply brushed them off as being for previous tenants of the property.
Unconvinced by his explanation, Megan decided to continue digging, and found various bank cards registered under different names.
The final piece of the devastating puzzle would come together when Megan typed the names of the individuals on the cards into Google, which revealed that her fiancé Lord Bertie Underwood didn't actually exist after all.
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Instead of being a lord and horologist (an accredited watch maker), 'Bertie' was in fact a serial fraudster called Robert Madejski, who'd also used the aliases Robert Doughty and Robert Soanes-Madejski to commit crimes.
Reflecting on her harrowing ordeal in an interview with Metro to promote the Channel 4 series Love Cheats, which her story features in, Megan explained how difficult it had been to wrap her head around the fact that the man she had fallen in love with didn't actually exist.
After rumbling 'Bertie's' facade, the fraudster would disappear entirely, leaving her with £30,000 of debt registered in her name.
"Dealing with a breakup is hard, but realising you weren’t in love with a real person is something I still struggle to get my head around," she said.
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"The chaos and trauma of him disappearing, then just having to go on being normal, and forget what I went through was really bizarre."
Megan has since worked to rebuild her life and pay of the debts after the ordeal, while Madejski was subsequently arrested on charges of fraud and sentenced to five years in prison.
However, he would later escape in 2022, and currently remains on the run.
Love Cheats is available to watch on Channel 4.