Between August, 1998 and October, 2002, Jim Perrin had, as nearly as we can work it out, at least nine addresses and he wrote in West of the period before that, whilst his first son lived with him:
‘We moved house on average once a year until he was ten years old’ , when, he says, ‘I bought a house in Dinorwig.’ (Although we did learn later that this was not the whole truth.)
Certainly he has ’moved’ around a great deal. Except: again there is the convenient ‘air-brushing’: actually he did not, as he implies throughout this book, single-handedly raise his son, Will, but instead remarried, his third wife, whilst his son, Will, was still very small; a toddler, barely three years old.
This young woman, who already had two children of her own and with whom he had a further child, was a very loving step-mother to Will and was mostly responsible for his upbringing in those early years.
* * * * *
By 2000, when mortgages could be as easily obtained as now they are not, relatively low deposits, accommodating bank managers and repayments which in some cases were as low as rents, made property ownership a feasible plan and in April, 2000, Jim Perrin applied for and in May received, a mortgage offer. Up until that time he had always lived in rented accommodation.
He had been, however, less than honest when answering the necessary questionnaire:
Status? Single. Married. Cohabiting. Separated. Divorced. Widowed.
We know that by April the 28th, 2002, (and not taking into account several other ‘seriously failed’ relationships) three former wives — two of them mothers of two of his children — were divorced from Jim Perrin. And at the time of this mortgage application not only was he then still married to a fourth wife — who later had his baby — but he was also, at the same time, living, ‘co-habiting’, with a young woman who, as the records show, subsequently gave birth to yet another of his children: although it was after she had fortuitously managed to disentangle herself from the relationship. (This was another child whom he had kept secret from our sister: she was still unaware when she died.)
Jim Perrin’s answer to this section of the questionnaire was quite without shame: ‘SINGLE’. And it was, in each category except ‘widowed’, an outright lie.
To the question ‘Have you any dependants?’ he answered ‘No’.
So, the necessity to avoid acknowledging those of his children then born and dependant (as the CSA would certainly judge) was achieved in that one small word. Not only is this proof that Jim Perrin was deliberately dishonest when applying for the mortgage, but essentially he was denying the existence of his children.
The money was forthcoming, and with a small bank loan as a deposit he was enabled to take steps into ‘Property’; by re-arranging his finances (using, in the paperwork referring to the last two of his properties, the title ‘Doctor’) and moving twice more, he upgraded his accommodation — always on a maximum mortgage.
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Before meeting our sister on October 29th, Jim Perrin had just bought his latest house in Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant; moving in only on the 18th of that month. But when he met Jac he was actually in considerable debt, albeit by the juggling of overdrafts, credit-cards and loan companies he was managing, it would seem, to be ‘holding on’. Was that a sustainable position? — as he wrote on page 200 of West ‘I had no material assets, my small reserves were dwindling fast…’ However in his letter to Jac, ref. ‘Jim Perrin Plans his Next Move’ he paints an entirely different picture, and although he gave her the impression that he was financially ‘sound’, there can be no doubt that by September 2003, when he moved to her house, his debts had inexorably risen: he was, as they say, ‘up to the hilt’ in that indebtedness.
The amounts he owed were such, we can categorically state, that without serious reorganisation of his finances he would soon, as the evidence supports, have been in a desperate plight. Robbing Peter to pay Paul was no longer an option.
Jac, on the other hand, had a secure tenancy, an economical way of life, a partner who had more than paid his way (still living at their address), and the proceeds from her own flourishing stained-glass work.
We know now, but our sister had no idea at the time, how Jim Perrin had been conducting his finances. What he wrote to her about them was self-evidently duplicitous. His mortgage was recent, and he had not yet materially reduced it; his lifestyle was funded by credit, as the records show, and if anyone needed to find safer ground, it was Jim Perrin. He knew he must sell his house as a matter of urgency and furthermore, move to a place where he could not be found by the CSA.
His blurring of reality when telling Jac how much would remain of the ‘equity’ is the issue, and clearly he had deceived our sister as he explained his plans.
Jac’s sisters.
PS. We had just revised this post (re. Jim Perrin’s third wife — who became step-mother to his son) ready for re-posting when we learned of another ex-wife. After Jim Perrin had married three times he had a further two marriages. It is the first of these we have just been told about — it was very short and does not alter the fact that he was married when he lied in his mortgage application, although it was to his fifth wife, not his fourth as we have written.