When Jim Perrin wrote to our sister shortly after May 1st 2003, it was to express his view that their relationship should be placed on a more public footing: we have acknowledged elsewhere in our posts that our sister became very much in love with him, and she was certainly besotted with him for a while and could not see clearly.
Others in North Wales who knew Jim Perrin, and of his reputation, had warned her of his potential for violence — even telling her that he had viciously attacked a former wife. We now know that it was not gossip, or a slur, but the grim truth and Jac, when she was told of it, was extremely anxious. In the presence of two of her sisters she asked him about the incident and he was obliged, finally and reluctantly — as we were questioning him most earnestly — to admit that ‘to a degree’ the reports were true. But he could explain! We have been told since Jac died though that there were other women whom Jim Perrin has assaulted. It is cowardly to attack a woman. Once would have been a heinous crime, but there have been several such assaults throughout Jim Perrin’s ‘career’. Both physical injuries and extreme psychological damage have been meted out to those over whom he had control: as we have the letters of victims, any denial of our words would be futile.
Yet at the time our sister could not accept what she had been told about him. He spoke gently to her, and convincingly, and explained that there had been ‘extenuating circumstances’ — it really had not been, he promised her, as his detractors had described, and she felt there seemed no harm in him: she little realised that in only a matter of months he would be assaulting one of her own sons, ref. our post Jim Perrin’s Breaking Point.
* * * * *
But Jac, living in the present, and beguiled, could not have foreseen it and after that winter, fierce in North Wales — in the lovely rising time of the year, she, by now believing all that Jim Perrin told her, consented to a secret ‘Beltane’ ceremony.
When at first our sister told us of her love for him we were happy for her in her present happiness — knowing as little about him then as she did herself. All too soon, however, she began to realise that things were not as they had at first seemed; but as the weeks went by and she had committed herself emotionally she ignored her instinct, ‘the warning signs’ and banished her misgivings.
Jim Perrin then wrote to her — after that secret ceremony — she living in her own home, (never with him at his house, ref. our previous post):
‘Let’s exchange rings and have an official wedding feast… ‘
In other words he intended (had he been able to persuade her) to make public the secret ‘ceremony’ to which she had agreed, and to make public his perceived claims on her as his ‘wife’.
This she refused, emphatically, to do, and it is revealing that in another letter to her, four months before she died (after he had asked her to marry him — legally — many times since that ‘ceremony’) he wrote:
‘You were showing an absolute refusal to relate, things were clearly not going too well between us. On the topic of marriage you consistently slipped the point.’ Back in 2003 Jac had in fact said to him ‘love cannot be willed into being’ which comment he referred to in an earlier letter.
And in that same letter he wrote of his plan — already formulated — to sell (after less than eight months) his house in Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant: ‘Let’s sell this house, equip your workshop, pay off our [!] debts, put the rest in your [!] Building Society along with money from my books and from my endowment policy when it matures and that can be for our season in the sun; let me rent [!] somewhere nearer to you.‘ Although it is quite obvious that Jim Perrin had no intention of ‘renting’.
So plausible, so disingenuous, and given what we have learned of Jim Perrin’s actual finances as well as his personal obligations at that time, we know him to have been lying: it was utterly dishonest, yet one can see his mind at work, planning this stratagem. To our sister, unknowing as she then was — loving and trusting — this might have seemed a wonderful prospect; almost too good to be true… It was certainly cleverly contrived to entice, and our sister entirely believed him.
There was, however, an obstacle to Jim Perrin’s plan…
Jac’s sisters.