Widow wins £1m damages from the world's most expensive matchmaker

This is the way love goes in Beverly Hills. You pay a matchmaking service to find you a multimillionaire - or "soulmate", as the euphemism has it. You decide you don't like the people you're set up with. So you sue, alleging psychological damage and demanding millions in compensation for your distress.

That is precisely what happened to Anne Majerik, a 60-year-old widow who hooked up with the single most expensive dating service in the world to meet a well-heeled gent to ease her into her dotage. This week a Los Angeles jury awarded her $2.1m (£1.1m) for her time and trouble.

The case pitted Ms Majerik against a feisty former Miss Israel who claims responsibility for countless matches made in heaven - or, more accurately, the Beverly Hills Country Club - for the past 25 years.

Ms Majerik claimed that, despite promises of three years of introductions to "extremely successful and highly educated, charismatic, kind, down-to-earth romantics" with a net worth running into the tens of millions, she was hooked up with one unsuitable man after another. She paid $50,000 for the initial service and more than doubled that amount to take part in a "money-back guaranteed billionaire search with international men having estates worth up to $50m".

She alleged that one man was presented to her as an international banker, but turned out to be an interpreter working in a bank.

Ms Majerik's nemesis, Orly Hadida - known as Orly the Matchmaker - said Ms Majerik was unreasonable, unpleasant and out to cheat her from the start. Ms Hadida's lawyer accused her being a "serial matchmaker suer".

Jury members made it clear they found both parties to the dispute appalling. One juror told the Los Angeles Times the panel wanted to hit Ms Hadida with $20m in damages, but could not bear the thought of so much money going to Ms Majerik.

Ms Hadida's lawyers intend to appeal, but the fabled matchmaker - listed in Guinness World Records as the world's most expensive - may have taken a crippling blow to her reputation anyway. The jury heard evidence of less-than-transparent accounting practices. "I give a 100 per cent guarantee we'll find your soulmate," she once said. Clearly Ms Majerik, for one, no longer believes her.