A woman who was fooled by her 'future husband' for months and ended up owing thousands after he saddled her with debt explained how he managed to pull the wool from over her eyes.
Megan Clarke was working in a bar on the Isle of Wight when a handsome stranger entered and made it clear he very much liked her.
She knew him by the name of 'Lord Bertie Underwood', and he claimed to be descended from the inventor of the Underwood typewriter.
A whirlwind romance
He invited her to live with him in his home by the sea and offered her a job in his watch selling business, to which she accepted.
Pretty soon, her life was incredibly intertwined with his - they'd go on dates to London and take rides in his Bentley, on their first Christmas together he popped the question.
Everything was going by so quickly, but two months before the wedding Megan started noticing the warning signs.
Robert Madejski constructed a house of lies for his bride-to-be to live in. (Sussex Police)
The cracks started to show
A lot of post was being delivered to their house addressed to people who were not her or 'Lord Bertie Underwood', and he claimed they must just be previous tenants.
Starting to worry that all was not as it seemed, she did some digging and found hidden bank cards made out to all sorts of names.
Megan told Channel 4 documentary Love Cheats that when she confronted the man who was about to become her husband, 'his attitude changed instantly'.
Lord Bertie Underwood's real identity
Megan then discovered he was really called Robert Madejski and had pulled off a series of scams over the years, cheated on her with several men and taken out credit card debt in her name.
As for how he was able to do it, Madejski constructed a whole life of lies for Megan to live in.
She told the Metro the scammer would 'make up tiny irrelevant lies to back up the big lies'.
He told her he'd had the floorboards of his house installed after finding them in a London studio and liking them, but the house was a rental.
Megan left her job and moved in with him, but two months away from their wedding she discovered the truth (Channel 4)
The scammer put pictures of the Underwood typewriter up in his home to further the lie that he was descended from its inventor.
He even told her not to post anything about them on social media, claiming that his dad had an important career in the Royal Navy, so evidence of their relationship wouldn't be easily spotted on the internet.
Megan left to pick up the pieces
In the end, he left her with about £30,000 of debt to pay off, and while she contacted the police to say she'd been the victim of fraud there wasn't much they could do to help.
She had to work to pay off her debt, while Robert Madejski ended up getting arrested on separate fraud charges and sentenced to five years in prison.
However, he escaped in 2022 and has been on the run since then.
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