Bride’s sister-in-law throws black paint over her in brutal act of revenge
This woman's walk down the aisle resulted in her sister-in-law standing trial - as the bride was brutally drenched in black paint moments before she was set to say 'I do'.
Gemma Monk and her £1,800 wedding dress were soaked in the stuff as she headed towards her husband-to-be at a swanky venue in Maidstone.
Her sister-in-law Antonia Eastwood was behind the bizarre 'revenge' attack which took place shortly before Monk said her vows back in May 2024.
The mother-of-two, 35, has now spoken out about the 'dramatic impact' that the disastrous start to her big day had on her after she 'lost all her dignity' in front of dozens of horrified guests.
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Monk was getting hitched to her childhood sweetheart Ken Monk, 39, at the Oakwood House Register Office, which is something she had been saving up for and dreaming of for 'so long'.
She explained she had a 'bad gut feeling' while en route to the venue with her father Jason, but said he reassured her it was probably just nerves.
However, just seconds after stepping onto the cream-walled carpeted hallway to head down the aisle, she found out she really did have a reason to feel uneasy.
Monk recalled how she heard her name being called out and presumed someone had accidentally stood on the back of her dress - only to turn around and get doused in black paint.
Maidstone Crown Court heard how the bride was 'splattered with paint, as were her eyes, face, and skin' while flanked by her bridesmaids and flower girls.
To add salt to the wound, Monk realised that it was her sister-in-law who hurled the black paint over her white gown. Eastwood - who is married to the bride's older brother, Ashley - subsequently fled the venue.
Despite her appearance taking a beating, Monk was determined to get married and valiantly cleaned herself up before swapping into a dress which one of the usher's had managed to get a hold of at the eleventh hour.
"We had waited for that day for so long," the mum told KentOnline. "Nothing was going to stop me."
"[Eastwood] was determined that the wedding was not going to happen I did not think twice," she went on. "I would have walked down the aisle in my knickers and with black paint over my face if I had to."
Monk and her hubby subsequently proceeded with the ceremony at the Victorian mansion, which ended up taking place two hours later than planned.
Her paint-throwing sister-in-law hadn't even been invited to attend the nuptials, but turned up unannounced to seek revenge amid an ongoing feud between the couples.
Monk claimed that she had been wrongly accused of 'trying to trip up' Eastwood when she was marrying her brother at a ceremony in Dover in September 2023, sparking a long-running war between the women.
The court heard that Eastwood orchestrated the paint attack in an attempt to get her own back on Monk.
She pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal damage for the stunt and was slapped with a 10-month suspended prison sentence. Eastwood was also ordered to stump up £5,000 in compensation and to complete 160 hours of unpaid work, as well as being slapped with a 10-year restraining order.
Monk is receiving £4,000 of this money to 'compensate her for the misery caused', while a £1,000 chunk is going to Oakwood House to pay for repairs and 'loss of revenue', Judge Oliver Saxby KC said.
It is estimated that the venue lost more than £5,000 due to the paint attack, the court was told.
Professional cleaning by specialists failed to remove the stains in Monk's wedding dress, meaning she can no longer hand it down to her daughter as she wished.
Sentencing her sister-in-law, the judge said: "This was meant to be a special day for Gemma Monk and her family. Courtesy of your conduct, it turned into a nightmare.
"It is not so much that what you did was upsetting and frightening in the moment, and it was both of those. It was also that you, by what you did, deprived her and her family - the wedding party - of the occasion they deserved and the memories that anyone who gets married cherishes. All this stuff about it being on the spur of the moment - yeah, right. You got it into your head that you wanted to wreck her day. And you did, and it was horrid and nasty and mean."
Monk, a mental health care worker, said she suffered from depression in wake of the incident and has been unable to work.
"To have paint thrown over me by my brother’s wife changed my outlook on life and made me question whether I had done something really bad, whether I had done something wrong," Monk said in a victim impact statement.
"This has had a dramatic impact on my life. Since the incident, if it wasn’t for my children or my family, I don’t think I would even get out of bed to care for myself.
"I have lost all my dignity and good habits in life. I have lost who I used to be. This has turned the most special day of my life into the worst memory I will never forget, and neither will my family."
Monk says she will 'never' forgive Eastwood for what she did and believes that the sentence handed down to her 'was too light'.
She explained that she and her husband 'don’t celebrate our anniversaries because of what happened' and said they plan to make their vows again to hopefully 'override the memory' of her big day being ruined.
The couple splashed out around £8,000 to host their wedding at Oakwood House, which included a reception at The Fields at Aylesford.
Olivia Burke