Scumbag who faked cancer to get £15,000 wedding is spared jail

A woman has been described as the lowest of the low as notes emerged showing how she tried to trick a small charity into paying for the renewal of her vows.

Wish Upon a Wedding offered to organise a £15,000 ceremony for Carla Evans, 29, who pretended to have cancer.

She claimed she had bladder and thyroid cancer, and liver and kidney failure.

Evans wrote online that she was dying and needed help and her posts were seen by Karen Hobbs, a volunteer from the charity who was taken in by her lies.

All the charity wanted in return was £500 towards the cost and proof of her diagnosis.

However, a forged NHS letter from a hospital consultant at the Royal Gwent Hospital raised alarm bells and Mrs Hobbs launched turned private detective before contacting police.

Even when the police arrived at her home, Evans continued to lie and said she had a liver condition and required dialysis.

When interviewed by police, she first denied forging the letter from the consultant but later admitted she had done.

Prosecutor Emma Harris said the cost of Evans’s ceremony would have been £15,000 but there was no actual monetary loss to the charity because of the deception.

She read a statement from Mrs Hobbs in which she said she can no longer trust people and had given up her charity work.

She said: ‘Carla had all my attention and trust, and I became very close to Carla and treated her as a friend.

‘She told me what she had gone through and I confided in her. I know how my children felt when they thought I was dying. I was hoping to make memories for her family.

‘I will never trust anyone again. Carla was so convincing and from day one of meeting Carla I questioned a few things, but felt bad questioning those things of a dying person.

‘Carla was very good at convincing us and had us all fooled. I have had my trust in human kindness stolen from me.’

Evans, of Trecenydd, Caerphilly, South Wales, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to fraud by false representation.

Ashanti-Jade Walton, defending, said: ‘There is no disputing that that facts of this case are awful.

‘Miss Evans is not only remorseful but deeply ashamed, ashamed for hurting Karen Hobbs, who is a kind-hearted woman. She has lost her good character and let down her family.’

Judge Jeremy Jenkins said only her two young children had saved Evans from an immediate custodial sentence.

He said: ‘This was a despicable act, the lowest of the low. To pretend you had a life-threatening illness to gain a financial advantage shows a contempt for decency which is hard to find.

‘In my judgement it shows a protracted and determined contempt for all that is decent. It takes a particularly devious and wicked type of person to do that, you are a particularly devious type of person.

‘You should be utterly ashamed of yourself, your behaviour beggars belief.

‘You have suffered abuse from people on social media and have lost friends. You deserve to lose friends for what you did.’

He imposed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 15 months, and ordered her to complete 120 hours unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation.

Evans was also told to pay £340 prosecution costs and £140 surcharge.

Lisa Bennett, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘Carla Evans callously took advantage of the sympathy afforded to a dying lady to try and con a very small charity out of money.

‘Our prosecution was able to uncover the lies but the depths she was willing to stoop to have caused great hurt and damage to the charity volunteers who believed her and gave up significant time and money to support someone they thought was gravely ill.

‘We hope this conviction will bring some sense of justice to them.’

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