Luxury holidays and lost bank cards - how fake Army major defrauded women on dating apps

David Griffiths is jailed for three years and six months for defrauding women of thousands of pounds.

He presented as a wealthy pilot, a former Army major who served with Prince Harry, and a man with more than half a million pounds cash at his disposal. But these were just some of the lies David Griffiths told in a bid to extract thousands of pounds from two women he met on dating apps. Following his sentencing to three-and-a-half years in prison for two counts of fraud by misrepresentation, his victims Joanne Brandon-Hodgkinson and Helen Moorefield hope that, by speaking out, they will alert possible future victims.

"He groomed me to have sex to get financial gain for himself," said Helen. "I believe this man has done this to other women, I do not believe we're the only ones." Griffiths, 52, who is from Malvern in Worcestershire, previously pleaded guilty to defrauding Joanne of £4,500 and Helen of £10,178.42.

Sentencing him on Wednesday, Judge Paul Hobson said the Griffiths "simply didn't care" about his victims when he told "whopping lies". He added Griffiths went into "elaborate detail" in the stories he made up and "the emotional impact... is hard to overstate". NHS director Joanne, from New Inn, Torfaen, met Griffiths on the dating app Hinge in August 2022.

"He was, I thought, quite handsome, he was tall, he was terribly well educated, and he knew a lot about a lot," said the 56-year-old. Griffiths told her all about his glittering Army career, and said he was currently working as operations director for a helicopter company in London's Canary Wharf, with a salary of £120,000. When police investigated this claim the company did not exist and his salary was actually between £20,000 and £30,000 at this time.

Months after getting together, he said he had changed jobs and was working for Bristow Helicopters as a search and rescue pilot at RAF St Athan in south Wales. "Our lives revolved around his shift pattern, so for two weeks of every month I didn't see Dave," recalled Joanne. "I am now convinced that during that period he was probably living a separate life with somebody else."

She said just months into their relationship the first red flags began appearing. "Whenever Dave needed to pay for anything he would never seem to have his bank cards on him," said Joanne. Then, when he began his new job at RAF St Athan, there was apparently a delay in him being paid, so she loaned him money to buy new clothes and a smartwatch.

When they decided to book an exclusive holiday with extended family to Dubai and Thailand, Griffiths said he would book it and Joanne duly paid him back for her share. "I didn't think for a second that the holiday didn't exist," said Joanne. "I'd seen itineraries, I had a booking