The Psychopath: A True Story(13)

Once my car was taken away I started cycling everywhere. I had a child seat on the front of my bicycle where my one-year-old son Zach would sit, and a tag-along joined at the back for four-year-old Eilidh. My seven-year-old daughter Robyn would cycle beside me. We all had fun cycle helmets as well – mine had a cover with dragon spikes and a tail hanging down. All in all, we looked like a travelling circus when we went out. People used to smile and wave to us, which the children loved.

At the time I didn’t know what the future held but did know that whatever job I finally ended up doing, my priority was to be available for the children. They only had one parent left and I couldn’t be working all hours to pay for the vicious cycle of childcare so I could work. With one daughter already at primary school and another about to start, I would have to think of a job I could do that would allow me to be there for them – to drop them off and pick them up from school, as well as be around for the holidays. It was not an easy problem to solve and I realised pretty quickly that the only real option was self-employment. But doing what?

I didn’t want to go back to being a business adviser or marketing consultant – I didn’t feel I could face telling people what they should do, especially having gone public with my own bad judgement at having been taken in by a con man. I had loved certain aspects of that job, particularly the training courses I ran and the workshops I held, but certainly didn’t feel ready to go back to providing business training.

In November 2006 I got ￡5,000 for the Daily Mail article, a lump sum to put into the Protected Trust Deed; it was a start at least. By the end of 2006 I managed to raise a total of around ￡8,000 and all the creditors on the Protected Trust Deed accepted the terms. It was galling to come up with even more money to pay off what were essentially Will Jordan’s debts, but at least that was the end of it and I was finally debt-free.





CONVICTION

My bigamist husband was convicted on 22 November 2006 and twenty-eight days later, on 21 December, he was sentenced to five years in prison for bigamy, fraud, possessing a firearm and not registering his address under the Sexual Offences Act. I felt like I had been holding my breath during the trial and sentencing and exhaled a sigh of relief when the judge handed down the sentence. It meant so much to me that the courts had acknowledged what he had done as a crime. And Judge Thomas Corrie’s statement was even more significant to my recovery, because it spelled out what Will Jordan had done in no uncertain terms.

‘Mr Jordan, you are forty-one, a con man, a convicted paedophile, a bigamist and an inveterate exploiter of vulnerable women. You have little or no regard for their feelings despite a belated expression of remorse. You have caused significant emotional damage to three women and financial loss to certainly one – Alice Kean.

‘I have read the victim impact statements of Alice Kean and your bigamist wife Mary Turner Thomson, who is present in the court. You are to be sentenced regarding the deception of Alice Kean for wrongful use of her credit card and also two separate charges of not registering your address. It is clear that you pay little regard for that legal nicety.

‘In addition, a taser was found in the car, a car that you couldn’t afford without cheating others.

‘You pleaded not guilty on 7 July 2006 on counts 1 to 5, all deception offences, but guilty of bigamy. You also pleaded guilty to possession of a prohibited weapon and to one of two counts of not registering your address under the Sexual Offences Act.

‘The position put shortly is that you obtained the trust and love of Alice Kean, and took ￡4,500 off her by deception by making various false assurances regarding paying her back and that you wanted to marry her. You abused her credit card, which is counts 2 to 5. The stun gun deserves no further comment. Sex-offender offences show that you do not care about keeping the authorities informed. I do not accept that you did not know the length of time you had to register for.

‘I make it clear that I have read and taken into account all the papers, prosecution and victim impact statements which demonstrate women emotionally broken. The path to recovery for both women will be a difficult one.

‘Regarding the presentence report stating the likelihood of re-offending as being “low to medium”, I simply do not agree with it. Looking at the facility of dishonesty, I find it hard to believe that the risk of re-offending is . . . “low”.’

The judge then addressed the court regarding sentencing.

‘For the counts of fraud I give twenty-one months. For the bigamy none of the previous cases were of particular assistance apart from immediate custodial sentence. This bigamy is a serious one and the effect is substantial, requiring being properly sentenced. Therefore I award it twenty-one months, making forty-two months so far.

‘For the taser, the sentence is nine months, making fifty-one months’ running total. For the two counts of not registering his address, I think that it is of the utmost importance and of great public concern that the authorities are kept informed. I therefore give three months and six months making nine months consecutive, bringing the total sentence to sixty months, or five years. Credit will be awarded for the 105 days already served on remand.’

The Crown Prosecutor was delighted with the outcome as he was not certain whether Will Jordan would even get prison time at all. It depended on the judge understanding the extent of what he had done. Will Jordan’s defence for bigamy was that he had married me because I was pregnant and he didn’t know what else to do. His defence for fraud was that Alice had given him all the money but found out that he was married and decided to extract revenge by getting him arrested. His ploy for getting around not registering as a sex offender was going to be that it was a mistake and he didn’t think he had to register any more. And the excuse for the taser was that he was American and knew guns were banned in the UK but didn’t realise tasers were a problem. He wanted to break down the charges into smaller chunks to make what he had done seem more reasonable – he would have looked like a fool and a cad, but he would have beaten the system. It was my victim impact statement that changed everything.