I thought Helen Skelton loved me but a scammer tricked me

My life has always been a very ordinary one. 

I worked as an engineer until I retired. I have two grown-up children and have been happily married to my wife Sarah* for decades.

But in June 2023, something extraordinary happened to me: I received a personal message from TV presenter Helen Skelton on Instagram.

I’ve always admired her work so, understandably, when I received what I thought was a message from her, I latched onto it. 

That was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made though, as not only was I scammed out of all of my life savings – somewhere in the region of £140,000 – I nearly lost my family in the process, too. 

‘Helen’ and I started chatting to each other the same day she messaged and, at first, it was all quite nice and light-hearted.  

We soon moved on to deeper conversations: Her kids, her divorce and whether the kids still saw their father, and I found myself falling for her. 

Eventually, talk turned to our feelings and we both admitted to ‘liking’ one another.  

I should have thought about my wife but, if I’m honest, our marriage wasn’t in the best place at the time and it felt nice to be wanted, listened to – especially by someone I had always admired. 

I didn’t even stop to think that it was strange that a celebrity was engaging with, let alone possibly romantically interested in, someone she didn’t know.  

So when, after about a month of chatting, she asked to move our conversations from Instagram to the messaging app Telegram, I thought nothing of it. 

The same goes for when she asked if I could buy her some £25 gift vouchers which, over the course of a year, rose to £100, £150 and £250. But I was too caught up in what I thought was the start of a relationship to question why a celebrity would need gift vouchers.

While I kept track of how many vouchers I was buying and how much I’d spent, Sarah didn’t know about them. This all came out of my personal account. 

Around August 2023 ‘Helen’ started talking about me buying cryptocurrency for her charity fund.  

While I believed what I was being told, I still looked up the fund to be sure. It seemed genuine but I still didn’t really know anything about crypto so I asked what she was doing with it. However, ‘she’ convinced me everything was OK when she said that she was doing this for our future together.

After being given instructions, I started putting money into three bank accounts. It started with small amounts and gradually grew to larger sums of £300 or £400 as time went by. 

By now, we were chatting most days and even though I was told ‘she’ couldn’t meet up or send pictures when I asked – because it might leak to the media and would be awkward for her to explain that she was in a relationship with an older man – I didn’t doubt that we wanted the same things. 

We talked regularly about being in love, being together and getting our own place, and so, eventually, in August 2024, I decided to take action. 

I told my son and daughter that I was thinking of leaving my wife, their mum, because I had feelings for someone else. They knew things had been strained between us so it was not a total surprise that I wanted to leave, but they were shocked by what I had done. 

When I told them that ‘someone’ was Helen Skelton, my daughter immediately told me to stop what I was doing. ‘You’re being scammed!’ she said.

She then took it upon herself to contact Helen directly who, of course, told her she was definitely not going away with her dad and that she didn’t even know who I was. But I still didn’t believe it, which caused an argument between my daughter and I.  

Concerned that I still wasn’t taking it seriously, my children then contacted the police. 

I sat silently as a police officer scrolled through my messages. I fully expected him to confirm that it was all legitimate. Instead, he said three words that have haunted me ever since: ‘You’ve been scammed.’ 

Hearing that directly from the police was horrifying. I finally realised the scale of what had happened and immediately broke down. 

I felt ashamed, embarrassed and sick to my stomach. 

Aside from realising I’d given away £140,000, the worst part was having to come clean to Sarah and I moved into temporary accommodation.  

In the months that followed I did everything I could to make it up to her and try to get some, if not all, of my money back. 

I turned to the charity Victim Support who helped by offering lots of practical advice and support. 

They helped me understand that fraudsters are skilled manipulators who coerce and socially engineer victims to get what they want – in short, I never stood a chance once they chose to prey on me. 

Fortunately, one of the banking institutions has since reimbursed me £75,000, but I’m still trying to claim the rest back through the Financial Ombudsman Service.  

And even more luckily, in February this year, Sarah took me back. I moved back home and now we are focussing on enjoying the rest of our lives together.