A woman has been jailed for 8 weeks after she cancelled her brother’s wedding behind his back because she didn’t like the bride-to-be.
Ann Duffy rang the wedding venue that had been booked for the impending nuptials and impersonated her brother’s fiancée, telling them that she wished to cancel the wedding.
Plymouth magistrates’ court heard how the 50 year old woman made the call on November 5th last year – just 20 days before the wedding ceremony was due to take place. She then rang her brother saying:
“You had better put this on speakerphone, I have saved you on the divorce. I have cancelled your wedding. Would you like me to send you the confirmation email?”
Soon after this, her brother’s fiancée called the police to tell them that Duffy had impersonated her to call off the wedding.
The court was told that there had been significant tension between the two women, seemingly triggered by the care arrangements of Duffy’s elderly mother.
She had admitted a charge of harassment without violence at an earlier hearing.
The court heard Duffy, of Plymouth, has 23 convictions and 41 offences dating between 1990 and 2012 for crimes including theft, affray, assault and battery.
Chairman of the bench Graham Price said: ‘Miss Duffy, your course of conduct is totally unacceptable and culminated in this telephone call.
‘You meant to cause inconvenience and upset and knew the outcome. It was a deliberate and spiteful plan and a vindictive offence.’
Duffy told the police in interview that she was trying to protect her brother from a marriage to someone she disliked and who she believed was taking her mother away after she moved in with the newly-weds.
Duffy was also given a restraining order against the bride for an indefinite period.
Luckily, because Duffy called the couple to tell them what she had done, they were able to rebook the wedding the next day and the ceremony took place on 25 November 2013.
