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 David Griffiths, 52, from Malvern in Worcestershire, was living a lie – one that cost two women thousands of pounds and left them feeling violated. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for two counts of fraud by misrepresentation after defrauding Joanne Brandon-Hodgkinson of £4,500 and Helen Moorefield of £10,178.42.
Joanne, an NHS director 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,’ the 56-year-old said. Griffiths told her he was operations director for a helicopter company in London's Canary Wharf, earning £120,000 a year. When police investigated, the company did not exist, and his real salary at the time was between £20,000 and £30,000. Months later, he claimed to have 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,’ Joanne recalled. ‘I am now convinced that during that period he was probably living a separate life with somebody else.’
“David Griffiths, 52, jailed for 3.5 years for defrauding two women of £14,678 on dating apps.”
The first red flags emerged early. ‘Whenever Dave needed to pay for anything he would never seem to have his bank cards on him,’ Joanne said. After he began his new job, there was apparently a delay in being paid, so she loaned him money for clothes and other expenses. Helen Moorefield suffered a similar fate. ‘He groomed me to have sex to get financial gain for himself,’ she said. ‘I believe this man has done this to other women, I do not believe we're the only ones.’
Sentencing Griffiths at Worcester Crown Court, Judge Paul Hobson said the fraudster ‘simply didn't care’ about his victims when he told ‘whopping lies’. The judge added that Griffiths went into ‘elaborate detail’ in the stories he made up, and ‘the emotional impact… is hard to overstate’. Joanne and Helen hope that by speaking out, they will alert possible future victims to the warning signs: the lost bank cards, the shift patterns, the borrowed money – all part of a script designed to extract cash from women looking for love.