‘I Was Conned By A Fireman Who Was Living A Double Life’ | This Morning

it's one of the most elaborate con stories we've ever seen for over two years Colleen Greenwood believed she was going to marry her firefighter boyfriend James but despite him coming home in uniform and smelling a smoke it turned out that James was actually called Greg and he had a wife and three children just down the road well we're joined Now by Colleen to tell us her story and good morning and welcome to you and I'm sorry that you've had to go through something like this in your life um it is an elaborate tale and we'll talk about it now you were you you were divorced and you sort of thinking about I'm gonna dip my toe back into the dating world and it was 2014 he met James as he was called then online what was he like what Drew you to him in the first place just he seemed a really genuine nice guy said he was divorced with two daughters had a bit of an acrimonious relationship with his ex as many people do but just no red flags whatsoever nice just normal guy and we'll just exchange messages well you started I mean doing the messaging it was dating app so you said everybody's looking for everybody uh so you're exchanging messages then you meet up for a coffee and and face to face what was he like in person what made you click he was quite an outgoing character much chattier than I would be I'd say I was more on the shy side just funny kind just a nice guy and not Brad Pitt looking or just your average but he was affectionate he'd buy you flowers he sometimes buy your flowers twice a day I mean even in the office he'd bring them and your colleagues would sort of laugh probably a bit jealous of what was going on so um no red flags as you said and this I mean even to the point when you realize it's deception but the time walking through your door dressed in full uniform as a firefighter smelling of smoke knowing now what you know but all part of this big Rusev police the lemons he went to manipulate everyone I mean he had a lot of knowledge about the fire service his father was in the fire service so he was around stations growing up he knew or the lingo but then I would hear him on the phone to a station manager and when I would get text messages from government Darlington fire service emails he went to such a the elaborate details and how carefully he may just pulled everyone into his lies wow well six months into the relationship um you felt pregnant um and you'd had uh complications in the past so you decided not to keep yeah it was that pregnancy because he had two girls and I had supposedly had two girls and I had two girls and I didn't want to have any more children because I had had complications we came to the difficult decision that it was probably best that we yeah it wasn't easy and um and uh and so he then went and had a vasectomy yeah showed you the scar that he'd had yeah it's like gauze and he was moving around because it was really painful did you ever see a scar or anything like that no I saw some what looked like Brews and I didn't get right up and have a close look but there's a little bit of gauze pad in but he was in discomfort yes um so yeah well we should say that according to the NHS one in 2000 men can get fertile after a vasectomy um but um but then um he says he's got a zero sperm count he's had a vasectomy 15 months into the relationship Are You full pregnant again he showed me the medical report showing he had a nil sperm count because prior to that I was so scared I mean we'd been careful I'd Fallen pregnant it could happen again so it was just off the table and he did that which I thought was such a selfless thing today he was 34 years old showed me the results and then two months later I felt pregnant again and you're thinking at the time oh my God he's going to think I'm having enough that's horrified about his family his friends are going to think I've cheated on him because well you would wouldn't you you'd have questions you certainly would have questions no we wish and I thought what a loving man he just never doubted he's saying he's saying it's a it's a miracle it was meant to be he said to my mum that it was the original baby we made a mistake and this was the original baby coming back he actually said that's my mother but he's against June God was his words during the pregnancy then he comes out with the marriage planner I mean he's got the whole thing yeah yeah um just December about a week before Christmas went into the living room my girls are there this you know when something's different and there's a bit spark of excitement and then he said have a look at the Christmas tree so I got up heavily pregnant waddled to the tree and there's this little black book and it just said Colleen Scott's wedding diary I need to plan Church reverse the entire wedding cake tasting wedding dress fitting the venue the honeymoon so had it all planned and yet then has an excuse for it not to happen because he says that he's unwell he discovers a lump on his testicles so the wedding can't go ahead in fact that's not the first wedding but there's a second wedding that's then planned and he backs out of that your sister becomes to get a bit suspicious at this time and they had um they'd been working together she owned a few properties of boilers and he'd gone in and replaced the boilers for new when she went back and looked at it and did some investigation they were old boilers so red flags for her were starting to show um she came to you with this um at which point there were some other things that she just discovered she came with this worry but then again James torched around because he was so manipulative he said he'd been let down he believed the boilers had been changed she's got this paperwork to back up that there had been and she was alarmed because there were rental properties and she wanted them to be safe so she started looking into other jobs he said he'd taken came up through he'd been helped because she had her own property business and the jobs hadn't been done and she'd invested some money into a business he was setting up she started to get a little bit you know it was suspicious here so um started to dig a bit deeper couldn't get returns from phone calls from people that were dealing with it so then she just decided this was actually on what would have been my second wedding day that he'd postponed because his girls couldn't come to the wedding um and uh and you I think you were going to go around to you this is where you were going to all have a have a chat together she actually rang me while we were out and said getting back to the house I'm so sorry Colleen I've found out I've been to Winnie told there was never wedding bought at which point he then says I'm just going to pop out for a minute I mean he uh he's he at that point he was still trying to talk everyone around it was his mother that didn't want him to get married he wasn't his fault and at this point so he then disappears well we actually drove back up home yeah my sister phoned up and said I'm not happy I want to confront him I want the trove were driving up at this point he pulled onto my drive dumped the shopping on the drive passed our baby to my youngest daughter through an open window got in the car said I'll be back in a minute and you never saw him again well you contacted the police with his registration number you discovered then his name was actually Greg Wilson uh well one of your daughters found him on Facebook and found out that he was married to another woman had three sons so he was living a completely double life he wasn't a firefighter at all that was a complete lie as well um because of the it's not a frauds to lie to somebody about their life there's nothing you can do about that but because of with your sister and there was this connection to work he was sentenced to six years in prison in 2020. that was partly he put a false name on our child birth certificates that was partly the reason that's right he pleaded guilty to fraud forgery converting criminal property and making a full statement a child's birth certificate um six years you've got why why did he do it because the police have said this wasn't Finance actually motivated no I never gave him a penny I don't know he's the only person that can answer that and to this day he's not answering it to anybody I can speculate I think maybe he just decided maybe you initially decided he wanted to have an affair and that's why it started and then it got so into the role he was acting that it almost became maybe he partly believed himself yes not not you're not the only one because there was somebody else as well that he was involved in he has got his family he's got his wife um there is a thought that maybe his wife assumed suspected that he was having an affair but had no idea about this whole other life no um I believe she knew he was having an affair he'd had one previously but no I mean he manipulated everybody around um how do you what because you you know we normally would say when someone comes in and sits here um well there's a warning you know how he was so good how do you dodge that I mean con so many businesses and people are a lot cleverer than I am and so and I I was with this guy for two and a half years he wasn't he was a part of our family it was a big part of our family we all loved him so why would you wouldn't question somebody were getting married to and but there was never any red flags right up until that Dusty boiler that Karen suspected well it's an incredible story it's one that you've written down in your book here playing with fire that is your story it's also on Love on the um BBC sounds podcast with Vicki Patterson your story is there at the moment um and if you do you feel that you can trust again like where are you now I'm happy now I've gone on to remarry the nicest guy I could have ever wanted I mean I won't lie it's changed me as a person you could not do yeah and when I met my husband I had to see his birth certificate he's passed away all his family and friends but I'm happy and and now I want to help other people that's why I've written the book and that's why I did the podcast with Vicky because I couldn't stop this happening to me but you do get victim shamed there's no two ways about it and it's not right um and I want other people to know this happened to me but I wouldn't like to do fine you know exactly thank you thank you very much

Channel: This Morning

Views: 114,948

Keywords: this morning, this morning itv, holly willoughby, phillip schofield, this morning funniest moments, this morning interviews, alison hammond, itv

Id: jJwjoqinNlE

Length: 10min 6sec (606 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 27 2023