A blushing bride blushed once more when a bridal shop owner spotted her in the Herald Express – wearing a stolen wedding dress.

Police turned up at her Paignton home and asked if she knew the dress had been stolen by her husband-to-be – and she admitted in court that she did.

At Torbay magistrates court she admitted she really did have “something borrowed…” when she pleaded guilty to handling stolen property and was fined £200.

The court was told the bride thought she had got away with it until sharp-eyed shop owner Linda Purdey spotted the exclusive gown.

She said: “I knew it was one stolen from our shop four months previously and called the police immediately. I also recognised the couple.

“I’ve been in business for 11 years and this is the first time we’d had a wedding dress stolen so I was bound to remember it.

“Like anyone in our business I read the Herald Express wedding pages every day.

“I was just amazed that she had the cheek to let her picture go into the paper wearing a dress stolen under my very nose.”

The bride’s new husband had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to stealing the £350 dress and was awaiting sentencing.

They carried out the theft while she tried on dress after dress in the shop and the gown in question went missing in the general flurry.

The saga came as a shock to photographer Bill Blackman, who took the pictures of the wedding couple and supplied the picture to the Herald Express.

He said: “I can’t see how anybody could be so stupid. I told them it was going in the Herald Express.”

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