The family of Martin Hemmings, who accused The Salt Path author Raynor Winn of stealing £64,000 from his business in 2008, have said that trusting her was their “greatest mistake”.
Winn has been under fire after an Observer investigation found apparent inconsistencies in her bestselling memoir, which follows her and her husband, Moth, on a 630-mile trek of England’s southern coast after being left homeless and financially destitute after a bad investment.
The report alleged that the couple lost the property after Winn defrauded her employer of £64,000, which she attempted to repay after taking out a loan from a relative.
The author has called the claims “highly misleading” and “grotesquely unfair” in a statement posted on her website on 9 July. She said that the loss of their home was unrelated to the “mistakes” made while she was employed at Hemmings’ estate agents in Wales.
“I think she’s just trying to put the best spin on the question,” Ros Hemmings, wife of Martin, told BBC Wales in response. “The mistake was that we ever employed her, and the biggest mistake my husband made, because obviously I’d recommended her in a way, was that he trusted her.”
She added: “I can’t forgive her for sort of destroying my husband’s confidence in people, because it did. I think that’s partly why we didn’t talk about it. He was so embarrassed that this had happened to his business.”
Ros recommended Winn for a job at her husband’s company after she met her husband, Moth, while working at a National Trust site together in the 1990s. She said he told her that Winn had lost her job as a hotel bookkeeper in 2001, which coincided with Martin’s bookkeeper retiring.
“I suggested her to my husband,” Ros said. “She came for an interview, and she was the one. She seemed very efficient, we liked her.”
But the business quickly started facing financial issues.
“Within a year or so we weren’t making any money,” she said, assuming the shortfall was because her husband was “rubbish at sending out bills”.
Their daughter Debbie Adams, who was around 29 at the time, choked up as she recalled the moment her father told her that he was in financial trouble.
“He said: ‘I just don’t know what’s gone wrong. I’m working every hour God gives me and there’s no money,’” said Debbie, now 46.
“About five days after that first call, he rings up and goes, she [Raynor] has been nicking money. I was like, ‘Dad, come on now, no. Surely there’s something gone wrong?’ He said ‘no, we’ve had a look and there’s money missing’’.”
The family say that a meeting with their bank manager identified a shortfall of £6,000 to £9,000, at which point Martin contacted the police and a solicitor.
Ros recalled Winn “crying” as she brought a cheque for £9,000, saying she had to “sell some of my mother’s things to do this”. She said Martin was advised to take the money on the advice of police, who also suggested they go back through their accounts to check if any more funds were missing.
“It was a very upsetting thing to do and it took us weeks and weeks, but we found she had taken about £64,000.”
Ros said that they were offered £90,000 by a solicitor a few weeks later to cover the cost of the lost funds and legal fees on the condition that they did not pursue criminal charges.
“He [Martin] was keen to do it in a way, we had no money and had nearly been basically bankrupt,” said Ros. “She also had young children, and to have a mother in prison or facing a criminal charge, he didn’t want that to happen.”
She said she has not read the memoir: “I’d have stamped on the book, I think. Just to gloss over why they ran out of money to me was shocking.”
Debbie added: “I don’t wish ill of them. I just wish that they would tell the truth, and the truth needs to be told.”
Ros and Debbie said they have no paperwork to back up their claims, but the Observer said their allegations have been corroborated by their solicitor, Michael Strain, in the original investigation.
Winn said in a statement earlier this month: “Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.” She added that the issue had been settled on a “non-admissions basis” by all parties involved as she “did not have the evidence required to support what happened”.
She wrote: “The Salt Path is about what happened to Moth and me, after we lost our home and found ourselves homeless on the headlands of the south west.
“It’s not about every event or moment in our lives, but rather about a capsule of time when our lives moved from a place of complete despair to a place of hope.”
North Wales Police told the BBC that they are unable to confirm or deny any details relating to the issue.
The Independent contacted representatives for Winn, who referred back to the author’s original statement released on 9 July on her website.
The Salt Path has sold more than two million copies and has since been adapted into a film, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.
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