Aston Merrygold's jape backfires

Aston Merrygold came up with a jolly jape for April Fools' Day: he made up some phone numbers and tweeted them, claiming they were the private lines of his former JLS bandmates.

I know, what larks.

Trouble is, he didn't think it through, and ended up sharing actual phone numbers of actual people:

The pop star played an April Fools prank by appearing to post the numbers of his former co-stars JB Gill, Oritse Williams and Marvin Humes. The numbers were fake.

But the star was mortified to discover he had accidentally tweeted a genuine number belonging to an innocent victim - who has since been inundated with calls.

It's impossible to imagine how that could get any worse.

Oh, hang on, it does:

[O]ne of the numbers – though apparently chosen at random – was in fact a real number belonging to a cancer patient.

That's pretty bad. Does it get any worse?

Bill Phillips received nearly 5,000 calls and texts, and that his phone was ringing every few seconds for hours. He therefore turned it off in order to get some respite from the relentless stream of calls and messages, however, as he’s self-employed, switching off his phone cost him “thousands.”

Bill told the paper, “I’ve had this number for 21 years and I use it for work. I know of one job it’s cost me.”

Worse than 5,000 calls; it's 5000 calls from JLS fans who haven't got over the split yet.

Aston is mortified and sorry; we know because his agent told the Mirror he was mortified and sorry. He could ring Bill to tell him, but Bill's got his phone switched off at the moment.