A British bride has suffered from depression and been unable to work in the almost two years since she was drenched in black paint by her spiteful sister-in-law. The attack happened just before she was due to walk down the aisle to marry her high school sweetheart – the culmination of a revenge attack amid an ongoing feud.
Gemma Monk, 35, a mother of two, was looking forward to marrying her current husband, Ken Monk, in May 2024. She was walking with her father on a cream-colored carpet at the Maidstone, England, location when someone called her name. Seconds later, she was splashed with black paint, she said KentOnline in an article published Friday.
Realizing that the attacker was her sister-in-law, Antonia Eastwood, who is married to Gemma’s older brother, Ashley, Gemma grabbed her by the hair, but Eastwood managed to escape. The bride was left distraught and in tears.
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Gemma Monk was splashed with black paint by her sister-in-law in England just before her wedding in May 2024, amid an ongoing feud. Antonia Eastwood was given a prison sentence of ten months by the judge, of which twelve months were suspended, which means that she will be released on parole. (Cover images)
“This has had a dramatic impact on my life,” Monk told Kent Online on Wednesday, after Eastwood was convicted of two offenses of criminal damage in a British court. “Even while making this statement at the police station, I became extremely emotional and started crying while talking about the incident.
“Since the incident, if it wasn’t for my children and my family, I don’t think I would get out of bed to take care of myself,” she added. “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 – one that I will never forget, and neither will my family.”
The attack occurred after Monk lost significant weight during a cancer scare. Although she has since been given a clean bill of health, Monk said her sister-in-law was aware of the medical battle at the time but “still decided to ruin the most important day of my life and put me in danger.”
Eastwood, 49, had been barred from the wedding following a feud stemming from her own marriage, with Monk accused of “trying to trip” Eastwood.
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Antonia Eastwood splashed black paint on Gemma Monk on her wedding day in revenge. This week she appeared in court over the May 2024 incident. (Cover images)
In court, Eastwood was given a prison sentence of ten months, of which twelve months were suspended. She was also ordered to perform 160 hours of community service.
“This was meant to be a special day for Gemma Monk and her family. Thanks to your behavior it turned into a nightmare,” Judge Oliver Saxby told Eastwood before imposing the sentence.
Eastwood’s husband, Ashley, was once Ken Monk’s best friend and introduced him to Gemma when she was just 14.
Despite the attack, Gemma scrubbed the paint off her face and body in the dressing room and borrowed a dress collected by an usher so she could marry her partner of more than twenty years.
“We had waited so long for that day. Nothing was going to stop me,” she said. “I didn’t think twice about it; if I could have, I would have walked down the aisle in my underpants and with black paint all over my face.”
The bride, who works in mental health, has since suffered from depression and can no longer work. (iStock)
However, Monk, a mental health worker, has since suffered from depression and can no longer work. In a statement to the court, she said the incident changed her outlook on life and “made me wonder if I had done something really bad, if I had done something wrong.”
The couple also canceled a planned honeymoon to the Maldives because Gemma ‘couldn’t handle it’.
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“I had a gut feeling — a bad feeling that something was wrong — when I got out of the car with my dad,” Monk said. “But he said it was nerves.”
“I will never accept her apology,” she added. “I thought the sentence was too light. She should have received a minimum of 23 months for the wait we had to get this to trial.”
