A 68-year-old woman identified as Beth Haining has narrated how her Ghanaian lover boy who was 30 years younger than her sca-mmed her of £18,000 — a money which was her life savings.
Speaking in an interview with The Mirror, Beth said she’s not the type that will easily fall for the sc-am.
So when she read stories of women getting du-ped through online sca-ms – blowing their life savings on them and even marrying them – she’d laugh and shake her head in d!sbelief that they could be so gu*lible.
But Beth’s not laughing anymore. Because at 68 the mum-of-two is counting the £18,000 cost of doing just that – and now she wants to wa-rn other women her age not to go down the same n!ghtmare road.
I never thought this could happen to me, said Beth, now picking up the pieces of a fa-teful online enco-unter with a man in Ghana nearly 30 years younger. “I was a stup!d old woman who fell for the M-ills and Bo-ons chat, but he just wanted me for my money. I’ve cr!ed for a year and put on four st-one.”
Aga!nst all her better judgment she began falling for him on social media – and ended up sending him thousands of pounds when he asked for it. She even flew out to Africa to meet him and fell stra-ight into bed with him after he picked her up at the airport.
And when he began to bo*ba-rd her with proposals on that first trip – and arranged a “surprise wedding” for them, Beth aston!shingly went through with it – leaving her children stu-nned. Then she brought him home – and all her illusions were sha-ttered.
“I should have known better,” she says. “I used to laugh at women falling for good-looking to-yboys from abroad and think how gu*lible and silly they are. Now I’m one of them.” She was a 63-year-old d!vorcee when she met musician Rodney online in 2014. He lived in Accra, Ghana – and Beth ran a charity that helped orph*nages there.
“We had a mutual friend and both loved music. Rodney was a producer, working with some big names in Ghanaian music,” Beth said.“I was a bit lonely as my sister Gaynor had d!ed a couple of years earlier and my mum had been d!agnosed with de*entia. But Rodney was very friendly and chatty. We got on well.”Soon the pair were messaging and then talking to each other every day.
Beth said: “I thought we were friends, but he started saying I had nice hair and he couldn’t wait to touch it.“We’d seen pictures of each other and there was a huge age difference – he told me he was 40 – so I didn’t realize he was fl!rting at first.”Before long, the first request for money came – and Beth, who had taken a shine to him, felt obl!ged to agree.
“I liked him and after a few months he asked if he could borrow some money as he was waiting for a cheque,” she said.“It was just £200 so I did, and he promised to pay me back. Then he needed some money for some studio equipment and I sent him another £2,000.
“We began talking about meeting up. I’d been to Ghana before as I’d worked as a volunteer at orph*nages over there.He asked me to visit him.”Beth flew out in August 2015. “He picked me up and gave me a full-on k!ss in the car which gave me butterflies,” she said.“I realized then we weren’t just going to be friends and that night we had s*x.
“He always had his arm around me and was k!ssing me,”Rodney asked Beth to marry him four or five times but she ref*sed, saying they didn’t know each other well enough. Then, a week before she was due to fly home they went to a club – and he stood on the stage and proposed.
“He said he wanted to spend his life with me and had arranged a surprise wedding for five days later, the day before I was to fly home. All his friends were clapping and cheering. I didn’t feel I could say no. I loved him but I thought it was too soon.” The next day she bought a green wedding dress, the rings and asked a neighbor to send over her d!vorce papers from her first marriage which ended in the 1970s.
She said her ho*rified children begged her not to go through with it after she br-oke the news to them on the phone.“I knew they’d try to talk me out of it,” said Beth. “They weren’t happy.” It was during the ceremony she first realized Rodney had l!ed. “When I saw his date of birth I realized he’d l!ed about being 40 and really he was in his 30s. I was a bit sho*ked but it was too late.” Beth flew home the next day and paid a lawyer £3,000 to arrange the spouse visa Rodney needed.
It was granted in February 2017 – and he flew over to live in the three-bedroom home in Redditch, Worcs, left to her by her mum. Then things began to go wrong. “He didn’t stop mo*ning and nothing I did was good enough,” said Beth.“He spent more time sle-eping on the sofa than he did in my bed.“He would a*gue about everything – the food, the cold and having to find work in a packing factory. “He said, ‘How can you be br-oke when you’re British?’ He thought this was the land of milk and honey.“My children and friends didn’t like him. I thought it was a culture sh*ck and he’d ad-apt. Eventually I realised it was all a l!e.”When she finally told him it was over he kept begging for another chance, buying her flowers, before finally agreeing to leave.She gave him the money to fly home and the taxi fare to the airport.Beth cla!ms he reported her to police for at*acking him.
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