Sleeping with a Psychopath, page 30
The following day, Lara, Emma and I had arranged to meet Adam, Helen and Clare, informally, for lunch, and Adam had said they would try to answer any questions we had about the investigation, and what had transpired in court.
It was another warm summer’s day in Bristol, and we settled ourselves at a table in a waterfront restaurant. The waitress came to take our order, and when she asked what I would like to drink, I hesitated momentarily, feeling slightly self-conscious in the company of people with whom I had always been on my best behaviour and had never let my guard down.
‘I’d like a glass of white wine,’ I said.
‘Regular or large?’ the waitress asked, pen poised.
I hesitated again.
‘Go large!’ said Adam, and that broke the ice. Large it would be.
We then slipped into a relaxed but captivating conversation about what had been going on behind the scenes – the things they hadn’t been able to reveal to me before. I found out some information about Paul Kaur, who I had been expecting to be a key witness. It seemed he had corroborated my story but the police decided he was likely to simply be a pawn in Acklom’s game and they made a decision to release him. He didn’t appear to have profited from the crime. In the end, they felt that Acklom was the bigger fish and that they would use Paul Kaur as a witness. However, the prosecution decided ultimately that using Kaur as a witness was too risky and might confuse the jury, making them question who the real criminal in the room was, particularly as Acklom was more intelligent, more articulate and perfectly capable of play-acting and appearing to ‘break down’ in tears in the courtroom to garner pity from the jury – something he had done in a previous trial. So, Paul Kaur was pulled out only about four weeks before the beginning of the trial.
Having failed to discredit the extradition on a technicality and finding themselves unable to cast doubt on Paul Kaur’s credibility as a witness for the prosecution, Acklom’s lawyers started to build a new defence. In their defence statement they raised concerns as to whether I was attempting to control the investigation, withholding information from the police and/or drip-feeding them. This was when they asked for disclosure of all material relating to meetings and conversations I’d had with the police. They were going to argue that I was a fantasist who had misunderstood the nature of my relationship with Acklom. Having seen chapters of my original manuscript, the defence would have known my version of events exactly, and using it, I can see how the jury might have been persuaded to think that my account of my relationship with Mark Acklom was a fantasy, especially with him presenting himself in court as a rather unkempt ordinary bloke who nobody would look at twice. It is a chilling thought. I agree that on the face of it my account might sound somewhat fanciful, but how they thought they would get away with that, given the evidence that the prosecution had to back up my claims, I just don’t know. And it seems that in the end they didn’t either.
My determination to see justice done was never primarily about getting my money back; it was about not letting this despicable man get away scot free with what he did to me. I wish others besides me had had the courage and felt morally bound to speak up, and I hope that my example will help people to stand up against all kinds of wrongdoing in the future. We live in times in which looking out for number one, whatever the cost to others, seems OK. It is not. We all need to be brave and expose wrongdoing when we see it. We need to reset our moral compass and not pass by or look the other way when we see people abusing others for their own personal gain. It is said that we live in a world where there is a generally weaker sense of conscience, responsibility and empathy among us. This is particularly prevalent online, but it affects the real world too, and we are all diminished by it.
The police described the case as ‘very challenging’ and it was the longest investigation any of the officers involved had ever dealt with, undoubtedly complicated by the fact that the police in the UK had to deal with other European jurisdictions. The Swiss, we were told, were relatively co-operative, but the Spanish authorities were a nightmare, as they failed, time after time, to communicate what they were doing, if anything.
Meeting the team informally after four and a half years of formal contact was extremely useful as, probably for the first time, I saw the three officers for what they were: three decent people trying, against the odds, and with limited resources, to make the world a better place. I think there are serious failings in the whole of the criminal-justice system, and they need to be addressed, but I can’t blame these three individuals for that. As The Secret Barrister, points out (with regard to the Crown Prosecution Service):
There can be no organization in any field that, from a starting position of being underfunded, then loses a third of its workforce and has its budget reduced by a quarter and still performs as it should. When that organization depends on the investigative prowess of a national police force which, over the same period, has lost nearly 20,000 officers – a fall of 13 per cent – and has sustained budget cuts of 20 per cent, the window for error is opened wider.
Adam personally apologised for the blunders made at the beginning of the investigation, admitting that the case wasn’t allocated quickly enough or taken seriously, because it was just considered to be an everyday fraud (nobody likes dealing with a fraud case). He thanked me for my strength in seeing the case through and told me I was the driving force behind the investigation. In his opinion, Acklom backed down at the eleventh hour because he knew he didn’t have a case. He thought I would be the one to break at the last minute and find myself unable to take the witness stand and face him, and when he realised that I really was going to stand up to him, he decided on damage limitation and chose to plead. According to The Secret Barrister:
One of the reasons that many defendants plead guilty only on the day of trial is that they will bide their time, hopeful that a prosecution error or a key witness losing their resolve – a crushingly prevalent problem in allegations of domestic violence – will free them at the last.
For many years, as I’ve said, I thought that the character traits I had always regarded as my strengths (my stiff upper lip, my resilience and stoicism, standing up for what I think is right) were used against me by Mark Acklom and contributed to my downfall. However, it seems that in the end, I was stronger than he ever imagined, and eventually, it was all those qualities in me that beat him.
16
A PLACE OF BRIGHTNESS
She had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
In my account of my relationship with Mark Acklom, I have tried to explain how I think he operates, and how he sowed the seeds of his deception. I found him fascinating and that is the main reason I was hooked. To fascinate: to attract the strong attention of someone. Synonyms: engross, captivate, absorb, enchant, beguile, bewitch, enthrall, enrapture, entrance, hold spellbound, transfix, mesmerise. Mark Acklom did all these things to me.
But not only did he fascinate me, he puzzled me. I like solving puzzles, and for eighteen months I had been trying to put the puzzle together, to come to some sort of understanding of what was going on, trying to build the ‘big picture’, not knowing that there were crucial pieces missing. Even at his most outlandish, Mark was convincing – perhaps all the more so because his stories were so astonishing that you thought that nobody could make them up and convey them so compellingly. In retrospect, I can see that he even planted that thought in my mind as we sat in the Hare and Hounds on our first date. When I remarked that his life was extraordinary, he responded saying, ‘You’re right. It is totally extraordinary. My life is like a film; you couldn’t make it up.’ He always had an answer for everything, without a glimmer of hesitation. I could never have imagined that anyone could lie so easily or go to such lengths to deceive. Looking back at the fascination Acklom held for me, knowing what I know now and realising that he is utterly diabolical, I think the archaic use of the word ‘fascinate’ best describes the power he held over me – for it was used especially to describe a snake that deprives its prey of the ability to resist or escape by the power of its gaze.
As Robert Hare says in his book Without Conscience:
One question runs like a refrain through the stories told by the victims of psychopaths: ‘How could I have been so stupid? How could I have fallen for that incredible line of baloney?’ And when victims aren’t asking themselves, somebody else is sure to pose the question. ‘How on earth could you have been taken in to that extent?’ The characteristic answer: ‘You had to be there. It seemed reasonable, plausible at the time.’ The clear – and largely valid – implication is that had we been there we too might have been sucked in … The sad fact is that we are all vulnerable. Few people are such sophisticated and perceptive judges of human nature that they cannot be taken in by the machinations of a skilled and determined psychopath.
Even before I realised who Mark really was, I felt as if my brain had been scrambled (a feeling that intensified the more I discovered about him) – and I think it had been. It took a very long time for thousands of thoughts to filter through that scrambled brain, and for new neural pathways to develop and healing to begin. I didn’t fall in love with Mark Acklom. I fell in love with Mark Conway, a character Acklom created just for me; that was a very difficult thought to get my head and heart around with a scrambled brain and mashed-up emotions. Mark Conway was brave, he was honourable, he was funny, he was hard-working, he had integrity and he always put others before himself. Mark Acklom is the polar opposite: a parasite, feeding off his unsuspecting victims, motivated by power and control, intent only on gratifying his own perverted needs. There is absolutely nothing admirable or heroic in that. It was the fictitious Mark Conway who walked into the shop in January 2012, but before long Mark Acklom had stepped in and taken over. Acklom is one man with multiple personas, and if he introduces one of them to you, you are likely to find yourself taken in, turned inside out, smashed to pieces and wondering if you will ever find yourself again. The journey back to anything like normal is long and hard.
Before I met Acklom, I was a happy, sociable, positive person; by the time he was through with me, I could barely function and had become deeply suspicious of most people. I suffered panic attacks, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, terrible mood swings, deep depression, and I found it virtually impossible to concentrate on anything, unable even to read a book. For about a year after discovering what had happened, I couldn’t listen to Radio 4 because I couldn’t bear all the financial reporting, which only served to remind me of how much I’d lost financially. I couldn’t bear to see ‘For Sale’ signs outside the kinds of houses that, by rights, I should have been able to buy. I have come a long way since then. But I still have a long way to go.
I look back on the six years of the police investigation and sometimes think, what a waste of time and effort. Had I known what a struggle it would be, and the toll it would take on my health – both physical and mental – would I have done it? It is impossible to know. There were many times during the investigation when I felt like giving up – when I thought that I was just wasting my time and that justice would never be served. With the granting of the EAW, Acklom’s arrest in Switzerland, his eventual extradition and finally, his conviction, I felt a sense of pride and achievement for having persevered, but no sense of elation. The personal cost to me in terms of time and my own health has been immense. Acklom was sentenced to five years and eight months, only half of which will be served in prison, but it is gratifying for me to have stood up to him and to have brought him down, even if only for a couple of years. Unfortunately, I am sure that as soon as he is released he will be back to his old tricks again, but I just want to forget all about him. He is very clever, he is very convincing, but scratch beneath the surface and he is just a common criminal. He truly is beneath contempt.
My dream now is the same as ever. I want a place of my own, somewhere I feel safe and secure. I always thought that if I ever found myself in dire straits, I would do any job to keep going, but since finding myself in this situation, I recognise that I would rather do nothing than something that holds no value for me. It took thirty years of mortgage payments to own my own home before, and I don’t have that time left now, so my dream may never be realised – but one step at a time.
In the recounting of my story, the emphasis has been on the struggle and the pain, but even in the darkest of times there have been many moments of wonder and joy, and even occasions when I have had to laugh at the audacity of Mark Acklom.
Luckily for me, I derive great pleasure from the natural world. Out walking, it will make my day if I see a hare, a water vole, a stoat, ducklings, cygnets or any other wildlife. I enjoy seeing the sheep and cattle in the fields. I appreciate the scent of fields of flowering broad beans, or an avenue of lime trees in bloom in July. I love walking through fields of buttercups in the spring. I gaze at the moon and the stars in the dark, inky skies that I tumble into as I listen to the owls calling from the woods across the field. Living in a rural setting has been more therapeutic to me than anything else, and not a day goes by when I don’t look out across the landscape and thank my lucky stars that I have been able to live in the midst of such beauty.
My address book has been severely culled over the past few years. Initially, I was deeply upset by the way some so-called friends reacted to me. All this has been very hurtful, but having had time to think about it, I am now glad that the maggots in the rosy apples of superficial fair-weather friendship have been exposed, and those apples are no longer in the basket.
On the other hand, many people rushed forward with offers of help, whether that was accommodation for a while, food, clothes, all manner of things. I will never forget the kindness shown to me by these people – from my oldest school friends to previously unknown strangers who have now become friends. Even the messages of encouragement that I have received from people when the story has been in the media have helped me enormously.
And what has happened to the various characters that I have mentioned in this story? Some relationships have fallen by the wayside, some have faltered, but are now gathering strength, and others have remained firm through thick and thin.
I haven’t seen Uma and Antony since the day we rowed and they put my belongings outside for me to collect. We had a brief exchange of two text messages in 2014, when I texted Uma to ask if she could spare any of the things I had given her in 2012. About a month later, I received a reply from her saying that she would like to know more about my situation and suggesting that we meet for lunch. I didn’t respond.
Anne and I remain the best of friends; we still holiday together with our very grown-up children and continue to enjoy all the delights of the British outdoors.
For some years I had a very uneasy relationship with my brother, Nick, and his wife, Annalisa. I believe that when I first met Acklom, they really did want to help me. Somehow or other, even though they never met him, they immediately saw him for what he was, and I can imagine how exasperating it must have been for them that I wouldn’t listen and appeared to turn my back on them. In 2012, Nick had drawn my attention to two lies that Acklom had told me, one to do with a Churchill quote that was painted on the hall wall in Brock Street, the other relating to the ownership of the house (Nick had checked the title at the Land Registry). I challenged Mark about both these discrepancies but, as usual, without a trace of hesitation, he gave me answers that seemed reasonable at the time, and I chose to believe him and resent my brother for his interference. At one stage, Nick and I went for two and a half years with virtually no contact, and until the Christmas of 2018 I had only seen Annalisa twice since she visited Brock Street in October 2012 – once at the funeral of my ex-husband in 2016, and again in September 2018, at the wedding of one of their daughters. I can’t say how or why, but things recently have become less strained. We all spent some time together over Christmas in 2018 and everyone seemed happier for it. Surprisingly, there was no awkwardness and I certainly enjoyed myself very much indeed. We still have a way to go, and nothing will ever be exactly as it was before, but I am confident that we will continue to see each other and enjoy family occasions, because deep down, that is what we all want. In the autumn of 2019, Nick and I spent a couple of days on our own, walking, talking and mulling over the past and our hopes for the future.
Martin and I have become friends and remain in touch. He eventually got to make his documentary, Conman: The Life and Crimes of Mark Acklom, which was aired on a new Sky Crime channel in September 2019 and is available to view on YouTube. I can thoroughly recommend it. He even got to meet and interview Charlie’s Angel who, he confirmed, is ‘definitely not a man’! I expect that he and I (and she) will keep our eyes and ears open for news of Mark Acklom for some time to come, and my advice to anyone who finds themselves in the sort of predicament I was in is to get hold of a really good investigative journalist to help them.
On 1 November 2019, it was announced on the Avon & Somerset police website that DI Adam Bunting, DS Helen Holt and DC Clare Ball were given awards for their work in locating and apprehending Mark Acklom.
At the time of writing (January 2020), Mark Acklom is in prison. Investigations are being carried out under the Proceeds of Crime Act to try to ascertain whether he has any assets. Unsurprisingly, he says he has none and it seems unlikely that I will ever see a penny of the money he owes me. Since Judge Picton sentenced Acklom in August 2019, the 120 days deducted from his sentence for time served on remand have been added back on, as it transpired that when he was investigated in Switzerland after his arrest in 2018, he was convicted of cheque and credit-card fraud (committed in Switzerland in 2014) and given a short prison sentence which he tried to offset against the one he is serving for crimes committed against me! It has also transpired that he is ‘wanted’ back in Spain, as he never completed his sentence there in 2016. Incredible though it seems, he was allowed out while he appealed his sentence – and, of course, he did a runner. I am told he is now trying to appeal his sentence here on the grounds that he wasn’t given the correct information about the evidence the prosecution had against him, particularly ‘unused material’, and that had this information been made available to him, he would have pleaded guilty much earlier in the proceedings and thereby received a shorter sentence. My own view is that he should be locked away for ever, as he is a known repeat lifestyle offender – a total menace to society – but in all probability, he will soon be out of jail, once again living the multi-millionaire lifestyle at someone else’s expense. Whose assets will he have his sights on next, I wonder?
