The Psychopath: A True Story(14)

I stood up and insisted on having that statement submitted and this showed the judge how all Will Jordan’s crimes tied together, how everything was part of his psychopathic game of manipulation.

Knowing that he was going to be behind bars for a few years was reassuring. I had almost finished writing the second draft of the book and was determined not to serve as a victim to him (or anyone) any more. I wanted to stand up to him as well as stand up for myself – and here was a judge standing up with me and it felt massively validating.

As I left the sentencing a woman called Helen approached me. She was another victim of Will Jordan but hadn’t seen him since she had been eight months pregnant with his child. She’d had his parents’ telephone number and phoned them to report on his behaviour, but they had just fobbed her off and seemed to show no interest in their future grandchild. When she confronted Will Jordan about his lies he had shrugged and walked away, never to be seen again until the day he was sentenced. Helen had seen the story in the Daily Mail and decided to come along and witness the trial for herself. Another kindred spirit had found me.

When I had met William Allen Jordan in the year 2000, the Internet was just starting up and there was no information about him online. There was no capability at the time to search images and the basic search engines assumed that ‘Will’ was a question rather than a name. As a result, a search on ‘Will Jordan’ resulted in statements about a sportsman called Jordan, or the Middle Eastern nation. Although I had tried to do my due diligence and research him a little when we first met, there was nothing available about him. I was determined that when the next victim started to research who he was, they would have all the information available for them to make a good judgement.





NEW YEAR, NEW START

Four days after sentencing we celebrated Christmas for the first time without Mum. It broke my heart to be without her but I tried to make it as cheerful for the children as I could. We spent time with my father who was coping as best he knew how and as usual caught up with my siblings and niblings.

At last, 2006 was coming to an end. So much had happened that year and it was good to see the back of it. Will Jordan was finally convicted and in jail and my financial troubles were being ironed out.

All year I had talked to various lawyers to ask what I should do about my bigamous marriage and how to extricate myself from it. One suggested I would need to get a divorce, which would be costly. Another suggested that I could get it annulled but was not sure how I would go about doing that. No one could give a definitive answer and most advised waiting until the trial was over. (To be fair, there had only been ten cases of bigamy in the UK the year before so it demanded rather specialist legal knowledge.)

I wanted nothing to do with Will Jordan any more and certainly didn’t want to be called ‘Mrs Jordan’, nor did I want my children to be reminded of the connection with him every time their name was called in class. So I got in touch with the Registry Office on 31 December and told them I wanted to change my children’s names.

At first the woman at the Registry Office was cagey. She asked if I was married as my husband would have rights over the children’s names as well. I briefly explained that I had got married but that he had just been convicted of bigamy. That I had no idea how I was supposed to extricate myself from the marriage, but that he certainly had lost all rights over the children. The woman was shocked and asked me where he had been convicted and I told her it was Oxford Crown Court. She thanked me and asked if she could call me back later. I was rather surprised but agreed.

Less than five minutes later she called me.

‘It’s sorted,’ she said.

‘What is?’ I asked, rather confused.

‘You were never married. You’re still single. I called the Court and they’ve faxed over the conviction for bigamy which is now attached to your original marriage certificate. Legally, you have never been married. Therefore you don’t have to get his permission to change the children’s names.’

‘Really?’ I asked, stunned, as I reflected on the number of meetings and phone calls I’d made trying to sort this out. ‘It’s that simple?’

The woman went on to explain that the law about altering names was due to change on 1 January 2007 and that you would no longer have to live under a new name for two years before being able to change it legally. That meant we could all change our names immediately, and that Zach – who was only nineteen months old – would be the youngest person to change his name in Scotland at that time.

I was delighted, and she gave us the first appointment for when they opened up after Hogmanay on 2 January 2007. And, just like that, the name Jordan was eradicated from our family.





FIGHTING SPIRIT

Will Jordan was going to be in jail for at least two and a half years but one day he would be out again. I didn’t know if he might be angry and seek retribution for my talking to the press, let alone writing a book about him. I was nervous but also refused to live in fear any more. I had a recurring nightmare about him turning up at my door and wanted to know what to do if that ever happened. I decided I needed to learn to defend myself physically and so when one of my best friends, Carina, mentioned she was thinking of joining a local taekwondo martial arts class, I jumped at the chance to do it with her. Taekwondo literally translates as ‘the art of fist and foot’ and as the legs are generally stronger and longer than arms, using them is more effective in fights, especially when a woman is defending herself against a man. Taekwondo teaches you to use both arms and legs which benefits the fighter in close combat as well as keeping an assailant at a distance.