Wedding planner jailed over false claims about ex

A wedding planner who wrote threatening letters and made 15 false statements about her estranged husband has been jailed for 28 months.

Emma Heys, 42, of Azalea Road, Lincoln, alleged she had been stalked and sent abusive notes by Christopher Heys.

Passing sentence, Recorder Eugene Egan told Mrs Heys she "deliberately lied" to obtain and extend a non-molestation order and prove breaches of the order.

As a result Mr Heys was arrested three times, Lincoln Crown Court heard.

The judge said Mrs Heys could have stopped the "miserable existence" inflicted on her traumatised ex-husband, but "you went on and on".

He concluded she was motivated by "malice" towards her ex-husband.

The impact on him was substantial, and valuable police resources and domestic violence victims would have been affected by her actions, he added.

Mr Heys met his future wife in 2006 in Manchester, and moved to Lincoln in 2013 where Mrs Heys ran a wedding planning business, the court heard.

He described their relationship as volatile and left his wife on Boxing Day 2018.

Neil Sands, prosecuting, said in February 2019 Mrs Heys applied to Lincoln County Court for a non-molestation order against Mr Heys in which she claimed to be the victim of domestic violence.

Mrs Heys also claimed to have received a bunch of dead-headed flowers on Valentine's Day 2019, to have been stalked by Mr Heys at her wedding planning store at Lincoln Christmas Market and to have received threatening and abusive letters.

A provisional non-molestation order was granted and Mr Heys was arrested for the first time as he left a county court hearing in Lincoln on 20 February, 2019.

The court heard he was arrested twice in March that year and at one point was moved from his home in Wigan to Lincoln in the back of a caged police van for interview.

He urged checks to be made with friends, CCTV and bank records to show his movements on the days the allegations were made, and said he only wanted to get divorced.

"Everything he put forward proved to be correct," Mr Sands added.

Mr Sands said checks with the Post Office showed a distinctive set of 2010 Wallace and Grommet stamps found at the defendant's home could not have been used on the letters claimed to have been sent by her ex-husband.

Mrs Heys pleaded guilty to three charges of doing acts intended to pervert the course of justice between 26 January and 13 July 2019, on 8 February 2019, and 20 February 2019.

Siward James-Moore, mitigating, said a psychological report showed clear evidence of a woman struggling to cope with depression.

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