Changing Rooms presenter jailed

Elizabeth Wagstaff: jailed for one year

A designer who worked on hit TV show Changing Rooms has been jailed for deceiving colleagues and friends out of more than £54,000 by claiming she had terminal cancer.

Elizabeth Wagstaff was sentenced on Monday to one year in prison.

The nature of your deceptions were particularly cruel and unpleasant

Judge Quentin Campbell

A hearing at Inner London Crown Court was told Wagstaff had claimed she needed the money for medical treatment in the United States.

But instead she had spent the cash on designer clothes to impress her boyfriend, who "liked his women to dress well".

The court was told that among those the home makeover expert had hoodwinked was the wife of fellow Changing Rooms designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, who had lost £2,000.

She had also swindled designer Anna Ryder Richardson out of £500, and former Blue Peter host Mark Curry, who had handed over £1,000.

But the biggest loser was her then boyfriend, Mark Thurgood, who had lost £12,000.

The court heard she had promised every penny would be repaid when a trust fund matured.

The wife of designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen was also deceived

Wagstaff, 38, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, admitted 14 counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception and four of obtaining property by deception between July 1998 and August last year.

They arose out of her repeated claims that she urgently needed cash to fund 11th hour treatment for her "terminal illness".

Wagstaff said the money was to go towards a plane ticket and specialist care at a research hospital in Seattle.

The court heard how, in reality, she was only suffering from water retention and a minor thyroid problem.

'Took advantage of trust'

Wagstaff sobbed as Judge Quentin Campbell told her: "The nature of your deceptions were particularly cruel and unpleasant.

"They were deceptions padded out with a great deal of sophistication.

"The victims were personal friends and acquaintances and you took advantage of that trust and that friendship.

"You obtained money from them by pretending you had cancer and required expensive treatment that you were unable to get in this country."

He went on: "There cannot be anyone in this court or anyone anywhere who has not had a friend or relative who truly does suffer from cancer or, sadly, has died from that disease.

'Awfully cruel offences'

"Therefore your pretence causes revulsion not only to your victims but to people at large at the insult that it contains to those who are in genuine distress and grief.

"It was a deception that you carried out that triggered the decent humanity of your friends and acquaintances who were naturally anxious to do everything they could to help you in what they thought was a terrible situation."

The judge said it was only right to ask why Wagstaff, a first offender who had enjoyed a successful career as well as a "substantial legitimate income", should commit "these awfully cruel offences".

He said he had read three medical reports which spoke at length of relationship difficulties and various health problems, including anorexia and bulimia

But the judge said she had not been afflicted by any disorder which would merit her being dealt with under the Mental Health Act.