I thought I’d met love of my life in a nightclub but it turned into a 25-year nightmare – my whole life was a lie
ANSWERING an unexpected phone call, Sue Hughes heard a man’s voice and butterflies fluttered in her stomach.
She had held a torch for Ste, a bouncer and the uncle of a friend, since first meeting him in 1998 and the call, out of the blue in 2011, was confirmation that he was back in her life.
Over the next few years Sue, from Birkenhead, would shell out more than £117,000 after Ste revealed he was suffering from an aggressive form of cancer, and needed specialist treatment at a hospital in Maryland, US.
The pair exchanged gifts and love letters and Sue, now 51, believed they had a future together, if he could beat his illness.
But in 2020, her world came crashing down when she discovered Ste didn’t exist.
In a devastating twist, she realised that Anna Bonner, her best friend for 25 years, had lied about her ‘uncle’ and had been rinsing Sue’s bank account for years, leaving her in over £30,000 of debt and on the brink of suicide.
Anna was jailed for 28 months after pleading guilty to the fraud, in June 2022. Ahead of Quest Red’s The Big Swindle, which airs on Saturday night, psychiatric nurse Sue tells The Sun the deception had a deep and lasting impact.
“I felt so betrayed,” says Sue – who was chief bridesmaid at Anna’s wedding and helped her raise her three children.
“She lied to me for 25 years and she has ruined my life. For six weeks after I found out, I didn’t eat. I lived on coffee and fags. I didn’t sleep and I still don’t sleep now.
“I can’t work because of the effect it has had on my mental and physical health.”
Best of friends
Sue was working in a supported living home when she met colleague Anna, in 1998.
They didn’t initially hit it off, but bonded at a colleague’s leaving party.
“We got drunk and everybody went home apart from me and Anna,” Sue says. “That’s when we began to become close. We decided to go to a local club, RJs, and that’s when I saw the bouncer.
“I looked over and I said ‘Oh he’s really cute’ and she turned round and went ‘That’s my uncle, Ste’.”
Both party animals, the girls would go clubbing together every weekend and even moved in together in a shared flat.
“She was OK to live with and we split the jobs half and half,” says Sue. “I hate cooking so I’d wash the dishes and she’d cook. She hated polishing but liked hoovering so we split everything,” she says.
“We lived together for 18 months and then I had to move back home to get myself out of debt.
“When she bought a house I moved back in.”
When the pair went clubbing at the weekend, Sue would look out for Ste and, although they never dated officially, she felt there was a spark.
“He had a cheeky smile and a nice bum,” says Sue. “Anna never officially introduced us but in the club we were always flirty.
“It was hard to hear what each other were saying because the music was loud but sometimes I’d get messages from him, sent from Anna’s phone.”
She lost touch with Ste after RJs closed, and Anna told Sue he had moved to America.
When Anna married fiancé Steve Bonner, with Sue as her chief bridesmaid, Ste was a no show, and the bride claimed he was too busy with work to attend.
Out of the blue
Still besotted, Sue continued to send birthday and Christmas gifts via her friend, until 2011 when, out of the blue, she got a call from a man claiming to be ‘Ste’. She never found out who was really behind the voice.
“He told me he wanted to catch up, that he was in America doing really well for himself. He asked if I was buying him a Christmas present and, if so, could he have a camcorder?” she says.
“I was shocked Steve rang me because I didn’t even think he had my number. But it was a nice shock and I had butterflies.
“Up until then the gifts had been inexpensive, like socks or a bottle of vodka but I was more focused on the fact that Steve had rang me, not that he’d asked for a camcorder – which I bought.”
Soon after, Anna told Sue that Ste had been diagnosed with cancer and had moved back to Liverpool for treatment, and that he was working as a doorman at another club, Garlands.
At his invite, they went to the club but Ste was nowhere to be seen.
Shock ‘arrest’
In 2015, Garlands was raided by police and, according to Anna, Ste was arrested and jailed for drug possession.
At Anna’s request, Sue handed over money to her to send to him inside and she thought nothing of it.
“Anna, I loved like a sister,” she says. “This guy, I had feelings for and if you’ve got feelings for someone, you would do anything for them.”
A short time afterwards, Sue was told Ste had been released but the cancer had come back aggressively and he needed groundbreaking treatment in a Maryland hospital, since it was not available in the UK.
Sue agreed to pay £500 a month, with Anna paying the same, but in subsequent months, the money crept up to £1,800.
She was then told Ste needed to move to a flat attached to the hospital, and agreed to pay another £450 a month, and a further £2,400 every six months for a treatment to “clean his blood”.
If she was “late” with payments, Anna pressurised her by suggesting there would be “penalty fees” added.
To “cheer Ste up”, Sue also wrote letters and sent gifts, which Anna said she would deliver on her frequent trips to the US, and she began receiving love letters from him in return.
Sue also received a text from ‘Ste’ saying he has finally realised how much she meant to him, adding: “I’m kicking myself for not speaking up sooner about how I feel about you?”
“I was shocked, I was happy,” she says. “It took him a while but I got there.”
Cruel betrayal
Sue kept the payments from everyone in her life, including her parents, because she didn’t think they would understand why she was paying for his “experimental treatment.”
By 2018, Sue had shelled out over £70,000, taken out numerous credit cards and even a payday loan.
Anna’s foster daughter Charlene, who is also her biological niece, tried to warn Sue that the gifts and cards that she gave Anna were never passed on but, still in denial, she refused to believe her best friend of over 20 years would do anything to hurt her.
But, after losing a job in a care home, Sue began to suffer from depression and, drowning in debt, she had a breakdown.
“It was too much, I had enough, I was done,” she says. “I told my counsellor I was going home to commit suicide.”
When a close friend heard a conversation between the two pals, she began to get suspicious and rang the hospital where Anna claimed she had worked for 10 years – and they’d never heard of her.
Worried Sue then did her own snooping on social media and found that, when she had said she was in the States, she was less than half a mile away.
Then, in February 2020, Sue made a devastating discovery.
Anna’s husband, now estranged, asked Sue if she could let him into the marital home, as she had a key and he needed to retrieve his passport.
While there he handed her a box of cards and letters, addressed to Ste, he had found in the couple’s caravan.
“I felt angry, totally betrayed,” she says. “It was the last piece of the jigsaw that I needed to take her to court.
“She then texted me and threatened to take me to court for breaking and entering so I went down to the police station myself and explained to them. They said they wouldn’t even look at it, because I had a key.
“So I asked, ‘How do I report fraud?’ They gave me the fraud action line, and that’s when it all started.
“By this time I had found another job but the depression I suffered before was always there, and when I found out about Anna’s lies, and the fact that Steven Lucas, who was supposed to be my soulmate, didn’t exist, that made me worse.
“It has ruined all the happy memories made during that friendship. I’m now unsure whether she was happy, or was she just using me? It’s 25 years of lies.
“She didn’t just lie about Steven Lucas and the cancer, she told me she was adopted by her mum and dad, who are actually her biological parents. She told me she was one of nine siblings, when it’s just her and her sister. It was just one big lie after another.
“Even now, I don’t trust people. I don’t go out unless I have to. I can’t work. It’s messed up everything in my life.”
Justice at last
In April 2022, Anna Bonner appeared in court charged with obtaining £117,239 by fraud and, on hearing her own foster daughter Charlene was set to testify against her, decided to plead guilty.
On the decision to back Sue in court, Charlene tells the documentary: “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe my mum could be so cruel.
“It was upsetting, because it was my mum. But I knew how much she’d hurt Sue. She was broken.”
Anna was given 28 months in prison for the heartless con, and Sue adds: “I had mixed emotions putting her away. But it needed to be done. She had to be punished.
“She manipulates you, bullies you, isolates you from everyone. I have no friends because I’ve been isolated that long.
“She even told Charlene that I didn’t like her and not to speak to me, which hurt because I couldn’t have kids of my own, but I’ve known Charlene from the day she was born and practically brought her up.”
The pair now have a close relationship, which Sue says is a silver lining. She has also managed to pay off her debts, after a bank refunded some of the money lost, and has bought a static caravan in Rhyl as “a place to escape”.
But she says the long term effects of the con will stay with her – and she will never forgive her former friend.
“She’s never apologised or explained,” she says. “I never want to see her again, I don’t want to listen to anything she says. She has no place in my life.
“I just want everyone to know what she’s like because she fills your head full of crap and then robs you, and that is what she’s done to me.
“It was a hard, long journey to get to the point I’m at today and I’m still in recovery. With friends like that, who needs enemies?”