Something to smile about! The grinning photo that Songs of Praise bell-ringer posted on Facebook hours after charges were dropped over £5K JustGiving theft – as questions are raised over terminal cancer diagnosis that she revealed on BBC
- Julie McDonnell was accused of stealing £5,840 from a charity fundraising site
Grinning like a Cheshire cat, this is the smiling photo of ‘inspirational bell-ringer’ Julie McDonnell posted on Facebook just hours after being told that criminal charges against her had been dropped after a case involving at least 20 hearings and seven different judges – all funded by the taxpayer.
McDonnell – who was accused by one judge of ‘playing the system’ during a protracted legal battle – clearly could not contain her joy when she discovered she was in the clear.
Just hours after prosecutors decided it was ‘no longer in the public interest’ to pursue the case, McDonnell posted an image of herself on Facebook.
The decision – dubbed by one critic as ‘a malingerer’s charter’ – came despite damning evidence emerging proceedings and one judge accusing McDonnell of ‘being at it from the start’.
McDonnell – who is in her 50’s – had been due to stand trial at Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex after being charged with stealing £5,840 from the JustGiving platform, money donated via the fundraising site, which should have gone to cancer charities.
Grinning like a Cheshire cat, this this is the smiling photo of ‘inspirational bell-ringer’ Julie McDonnell posted on Facebook just hours after being told that criminal charges against her had been dropped after a case involving at least 20 hearings and seven different judges
The donations had come from members of the public after McDonnell had enlisted the help of bell-ringers around the world to help sufferers of blood cancer after claiming she was terminally ill after being diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia in December 2015.
Her campaign touched the hearts of millions around the globe after she appeared on BBC One’s Songs of Praise where she spoke movingly about undergoing a stem cell transplant.
After the broadcast from from her local church – St George’s in Brede, East Sussex, it was not long before hundreds of churches across the land, among them St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, were ringing for Julie McDonnell.
The appeal, supported by the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, which has 65 affiliated societies worldwide, became an international phenomenon.
A special bell-ringing ‘method’, or pattern was composed – the Julie McDonnell Doubles, which can be rung on five or six bells.
READ MORE: Sussex bell-ringer who revealed her terminal cancer on Songs of Praise has her story questioned by police, judges and former friends after bells from the Vatican to the North Pole were rung in her name
The Pope allowed the Great Bell in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to sound for Julie McDonnell and the Dalai Lama arranged for meditation bells to be rung in support at Dharamshala, his home on the edge of the Himalayas.
Hand bells were rung over the North Pole at 38,000 ft on a flight from Gatwick to Vancouver, on the Great Wall of China, and by the Pyramids in Giza.
Ringers in Sydney, Cape Town, Miami, and Hawaii also joined in and a bell was even rung on the International Space Station about 250 miles above earth.
But shock-waves were sent around the bell-ringing world after McDonnell was arrested and appeared before Hastings Magistrates Court on March 20, 2019, where she entered a plea of not guilty.
A seemingly straightforward prosecution, however, has dragged on interminably, with the defendant sometimes unable to attend court because she claimed she was suffering from multiple conditions including muscle weakness, PTSD, neurological problems, an eating disorder, and failing mental health which has, most recently, rendered her apparently mute.
It emerged in court that McDonnell had missed proceedings as she had been busy bell-ringing while pictures posted by her on her Facebook profile, using her maiden name, painted a different picture.
Pictures posted by her on her Facebook profile, using her maiden name, during the three-year period in which she claimed to be suffering from all manner of ailments – losing 20kg at one time, she said, owing to an eating disorder – suggest that Judge Laing was right to be suspicious, which only adds to the controversy.
They included snaps of McDonnell in a swimsuit on the beach in St Leonards, sitting on the shingle and enjoying a sunset.
‘You positively glow. Gorgeous Girl,’ a male admirer wrote, to which she replied: ‘It’s just gorgeous here. I’m so lucky.’
McDonnell’s campaign touched the hearts of millions around the globe after she appeared on BBC One’s Songs of Praise where she spoke movingly about undergoing a stem cell transplant
But shockwaves were sent around the bell-ringing world after McDonnell was arrested and appeared before Hastings Magistrates Court on March 20 2019 where she entered a plea of not guilty (McDonnell in a picture posted on Facebook on May 16 of her in St Leonards-on-Sea)
It emerged in court that McDonnell had missed proceedings as she had been busy bell-ringing while pictures posted by her on her Facebook profile, using her maiden name, painted a different picture
On another occasion, when she visited Hever Castle in Kent, an admirer thought she was ‘looking radiant’.
And, in May last year, she uploaded a photo of the summit of Snowdon, attracting 24 ‘likes’ from friends.
It was a period, remember, when Julie McDonnell said she was suffering variously from muscle weakness, PTSD, neurological problems, and failing mental health, not forgetting that eating disorder.
Police discovered that Julie McDonnell had never undergone a stem cell transplant and could not, therefore, have been ‘matched’ with a compatible donor by the Anthony Nolan charity, as she had claimed.
That revelation emerged at a previous hearing but went unreported.
During one hearing in June 2021 Judge Shani Barnes revealed that a ‘witness’ had come forward comparing dates when McDonnell had not turned up in court ,owing to ill health, with dates when she was bell-ringing. ‘
The judge said: ‘I’m taken aback the number of times she was unwell, she was actually bell-ringing.’
In January 2023, Judge Christine Laing told McDonnell: ‘I have a sense from reports you are playing the system . . . to delay the case any further is unconscionable.
‘It is an alleged fraud on the public and the public have a right for the case to be heard . . . all of the delays have been initiated by this defendant.’
During the three-year period in which McDonnell claimed to be suffering from all manner of ailments she posted a series of snaps of herself enjoying days out at the seaside (McDonnell in a picture posted on Facebook on May 16 of her in St Leonards-on-Sea)
Police discovered that Julie McDonnell had never undergone a stem cell transplant and could not, therefore, have been ‘matched’ with a compatible donor by the Anthony Nolan charity, as she had claimed
In a hearing on August 4, Judge David Rennie tried to speak to McDonnell via a video link – but she did not say a word.
Two psychiatrists, funded by Legal Aid, could not say she was fit to plead but neither could they rule out malingering.
Judge Rennie said: ‘If you ask me, she’s at it and has been from the start,’
Four days later Judge Jeremy Gold said: ‘There comes a time when the possibility of a defendant malingering to avoid trial is something to be avoided if it is a genuine possibility as it appears in this case.
‘This is a case which is unlikely to result in any significant adverse penalty to the defendant, whether she is fit or unfit to plead. I wonder if a view may be taken.’
But in a hearing 10 days later prosecutors told Judge Robert Fraser – the seventh judge to preside over the case – that ‘the Crown will be offering no evidence.’
McDonnell had been a novice bell-ringer of just 20 months when she began her campaign.
She had arrived in Brede with her partner, Andrew McDonnell, a policeman, who became her third husband after the couple moved to the south coast from Northampton in 2014.
Parishioners were impressed with tales of her exciting past.
She told them she had been a ‘leading and high-ranking expert in Middle Eastern affairs within British military intelligence and was fluent in Arabic, having studied languages at Oxford. She had stepped back from that world, she said, after being shot in the back on assignment in Egypt.
But in a hearing 10 days later prosecutors told Judge Robert Fraser – the seventh judge to preside over the case – that ‘the Crown will be offering no evidence’ (McDonnell ina picture posted to Facebook on October 25, 2020, of her in Hever Castle, Kent)
A special peal devised by fellow ringers — the ‘Julie McDonnell Doubles — was rung at her local church, historic St George’s in Brede, East Sussex, with members of the congregation asked to make a donation to raise public awareness about leukaemia (McDonnell in a picture posted on Facebook on May 16 of her in St Leonards-on-Sea)
The truth was decidedly more mundane. Julie Harrison already had two failed marriages behind her by the time she settled in Brede with Mr McDonnell.
She married her second husband to a ‘glass bonder’ in 1994, when she was 26. The couple had a daughter together.
Her job is given on the certificate as ‘computer consultant’. She is thought to have worked, since then, as a civil servant.
Duncan Reid, a former church warden at St George’s described McDonnell as ‘very charismatic,’ adding: ‘She had quite an effervescent personality and could command a room. She made lots of friends.’
She walked down the aisle with Mr McDonnell at St George’s Church on July 17, 2015.
According to McDonnell, the couple, who were often invited to supper at the vicarage, brought forward their big day on the advice of her consultant.
Mr Reid said: ‘There was an outpouring for her when she told us she had cancer,’
‘We didn’t doubt her word. Why would we?’ But, miraculously, the bell never did toll for Julie McDonnell. Not long after her nuptials, the local paper revealed that the Anthony Nolan charity had found her a compatible donor.
Not long after her nuptials, the local paper revealed that the Anthony Nolan charity had found her a compatible donor.
No one could remember her going into hospital for the lifesaving operation.
The marriage lasted little than a year with neighbours reporting the couple ‘constantly rowing’.
McDonnell had been a novice bell-ringer of just 20 months when she began her campaign. Parishioners were impressed with tales of her exciting past. She told them she had been a ‘leading and high-ranking expert in Middle Eastern affairs within British military intelligence and was fluent in Arabic
One said: ‘He left quite suddenly and never came back.’
Eventually, inconsistencies in her ‘cancer’ story caused suspicion and the police began an investigation.
Brian Firman, master of ceremonies at St George’s, said: ‘We considered her our friend but one day she just left and we never saw her again. It was quite upsetting.’
Not everyone was taken in.
Gary Marriott said: ‘I am not surprised at what has happened because I was always suspicious of her.
‘I did a sponsored walk for her which was embarrassing enough. I couldn’t get out of it because she begged me to do it. I didn’t want to disappoint her so I said yes. I am disappointed that the truth hasn’t been revealed.’
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said prosecutors had been ‘trial-ready’ since late 2019 but ‘given that these allegations date back to 2016 and it has so far not been possible to bring the case to trial, we were asked by the judge to review the case and decide whether it was in the public interest to continue’.
The spokesperson added: ‘Following that review and having applied that legal test, we reluctantly decided it was no longer in the public interest to continue with the prosecution.’
McDonnell has been approached for comment.
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