A woman who spoke out about the dangers of romance scammers after falling for one has since died.
Married mother-of-two Gail Astin, 44, from the Scottish Borders village of Ancrum, sent nearly £5,500 to accounts in the US and Nigeria she thought belonged to her online boyfriend in 2019.
Believing he was an American marine engineer working in western Africa named David Williams, she also sent him nude photos.
When ‘David’ began threatening to expose the affair to her husband Simon unless she sent him more money, she went to police and confessed to her spouse.
Simon was furious but decided to work through the problems, using money he inherited from his late father to pay off Gail’s debts.
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They reconciled, but the following year Gail was diagnosed with a brain tumour and died aged 46.
Paying tribute at the time, Simon told the Burnley Express: ‘Gail was not only my wife, she was my best friend and soulmate who gave me our two wonderful sons.
‘The messages of support and encouragement she received when we told people about her illness left her very humbled.
‘She never realised how well liked she was.’
‘Everyone always commented on her infectious smile and bubbly personality but she was also quite a private person and family was very important to her.’
Simon previously told how he ‘never considered’ leaving his wife, saying in 2019: ‘I started to feel guilty. I thought I hadn’t paid her enough attention and felt completely inadequate.
‘It was all too much to take in. I couldn’t comprehend why she would do what she did.
‘I just wanted to put it all behind us and move on. We are over that rocky patch and we are moving on as a family now.’
Speaking five years ago, Gail explained how she’d been contacted out of the blue by a ‘caring’ stranger at a time when she was struggling to open up to her family about her mental health.
She said the man, who claimed he’d moved to Nigeria for work, seemed ‘genuine’ and she ‘began to fall’ for him after he said he loved her.
In September, after just a month of chatting, David ‘pleaded’ to Gail to send naked photos.
She explained: ‘He told me his wife had died and I felt sorry for him. He pulled on my heart strings.’
‘My husband was struggling with how to deal with my feelings,’ she added.
‘He’s not an emotional person so for a long time, I bottled my own emotions up.’
She began suspecting something was wrong when ‘David’ failed to help her pay off a credit card bill she’d racked up by sending him money for financial difficulties he’d supposedly experienced.
The man turned ‘turned nasty’ and messaged her ‘I am going to be blunt with you as I don’t have the luxury of wasting time.’
‘You have one hour. Get the cops involved and everyone including Scottish borders will know.’
‘Do not f**k with me am not here to play games. The tough girl act is just going to make things worse for you.’
She dialled 999 on December 5 and confessed to Simon.
Gail later added: ‘We try not to talk about it because it makes him very angry. He has struggled to come to terms with it all.
‘I feel guilty because we have lost so much money. But he felt to blame too for me being there for me and spending more time together.
‘I hate myself for what I’ve done and I thought he would leave me.’
Portuguese businessman Pedro Hipolito – the real man in the photos used by ‘David’ – runs a firm helping companies work in Africa and has had ‘countless’ fake social media accounts posing as him.
At the time he said: ‘It’s a crime and I hate that people are doing this. It’s unstoppable. Something must be done to stop these fake accounts.
‘It’s terrible that lonely people are the victims. All they want is joy in their lives and they are vulnerable.’
Police investigated the fraud but it’s believed detectives hit a dead end.
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