Antonia Eastwood was handed a 10-month jail term suspended for 12 months for the revenge attack
Gemma Monk(Image: Cover Images)
A Manchester woman who narrowly escaped a jail sentence after throwing black paint over her sister-in-law at her wedding has spoken out for the first time.
Antonia Eastwood, 49, received a 10-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months following a spiteful “revenge” attack on Gemma Monk in May 2024. The incident left black paint splattered across Gemma’s white wedding dress on her special day in front of horrified guests
Mrs Eastwood, who is married to Gemma’s brother Ashley, claimed she carried out the attack in retaliation for an incident at her own wedding the previous year. Speaking publicly for the first time since her sentencing, she said: “I feel ashamed of myself. It’s not me. I’ve never been in trouble with the police before. Ever.
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“I had a full-blown panic attack on the day I was sentenced. I was petrified I’d go to prison. It has all taken its toll,” she told the Daily Mail.
Her husband claimed the attack followed alleged incident at her own wedding in 2023, when he claimed Gemma “had her foot in the aisle as Toni walked past” – an incident Gemma where said she had been wrongly accused.
But it sparked a bitter feud that resulted in Ashley and Antonia being excluded from Gemma’s wedding in Maidstone, Essex, reports the Mirror.
Eastwood, 49, who now lives in Manchester, was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court for two offences of criminal damage this month.
Prosecutor Pietro Matarazzo told the court: “Her wedding dress turned black. It was splattered with paint, as were her eyes, face, and skin.”
Gemma, realising it was her sister-in-law who was with her brother, seized her by the hair, but she escaped. Police were called and arrested Eastwood. The court heard that the bill for repairs and “loss of revenue” at Oakwood House following the paint-throwing incident amounted to at least £5,000.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Gemma, 35, said: “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.
“This has had a dramatic impact on my life. Even while I was providing this statement at the police station, I got extremely emotional and started crying while talking about the incident.
“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.”
Remarkably, on the day, Gemma, composed herself, scrubbed the paint from her face and body in a changing cubicle and slipped into a replacement dress fetched by an usher before going ahead with the ceremony, having been with her partner for more than 20 years.
She told KentOnline: “We had waited for that day for so long. Nothing was going to stop me.
“She was determined that the wedding was not going to happen. I did not think twice, I would have walked down the aisle in my knickers and with black paint over my face if I had to.”
She added: “I had a gut feeling, a bad feeling that something was wrong when I got out of the car with my dad. But he said it must be nerves.”
Responding to the sentencing, Gemma said: “I will never accept her apology. I thought the sentence was too light. She should have got at least 23 months for the wait we have had to get this to court.”
‘Meant to be a special day’
Before passing sentence, Judge Oliver Saxby KC acknowledged that while “emotions were high” and those involved would “never forget,” they should now move forward with their lives.
He also told the court that he was following sentencing guidelines and “not being kind or bending over backwards” by sparing the defendant an immediate custodial sentence. However, imposing a 10-month jail term suspended for 12 months with 160 hours of unpaid work, he poured scorn on Eastwood’s actions and her attitude towards them.
“This was meant to be a special day for Gemma Monk and her family. Courtesy of your conduct, it turned into a nightmare,” he told her.
“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.
“Worse than that, there is a lingering suspicion that even if you do trigger regret now, it’s been a while coming, that deep-down for some time you thought she deserved it. 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.”
