Friday 9th October 2026
I woke up yesterday with what I thought was a raging headache, turned out it was a full on migraine that stayed with me all day, because no medication I owned in my fairly vast medicine drawer (we all have one of those, right? A drawer we keep ALL our past prescriptions in), possessed the power to take that almighty throbbing away. Whilst I didn’t check it, I was fairly certain it was linked to my blood pressure as the migraines are usually as sign that it’s too high. My first thought of the morning was my mum, that alone tells me everything. I had no nightmares, no uncomfortable dreams about her the night before, but I woke up feeling angry, feeling frustrated, having pretend conversations with her in own head, then came the re-reading of that final message I sent to her, then came me counting down the months since then across my fingers followed by feeling outraged it had been that long since and how she hadn’t even bothered to wish her grandchildren a ‘Happy Birthday’. I expect, in part, some of this has resurfaced because I am in the process of throwing myself in so deeply in to T’s 8th birthday, which is only a few weeks away now. Having gone through two other birthdays back in July, where there wasn’t a single peep from her, I know what’s coming, or better said, what isn’t coming. And I feel blind with anger. Anger that she could take out her pure selfishness on my children, who have never done anything to her, who are completely innocent of all of her atrocities. I work so hard to protect my children from her, and so it is so incredibly conflicting and confusing when I also feel that despite me not wanting her in my own life and the fact that I shelter the kids from her, I STILL expect her to make an effort with them. This is more so that one day, I can explain the situation to them, but then also say, she somewhat tried. But she isn’t even doing that now, because I called her out on her behaviour. But that is what is so incredibly confusing to me.
The six month mind fuck of trying to sort out the belongings from my dad, from the house, from the crime scene, that I had spent 14 years thinking were gone, disposed of, that were actually sat the whole time in a police lock up, broke another little piece of me off. Something that could have been, should have been so incredibly simple because of how delicate a situation it is, was made so much more painful, by people who you trusted to help you and understand you. Since my mum left my dad in 2008, she has always been massively hung up about what was hers and what was his, always making clear distinctions between the two. She was so fixated on anything she owned, that it has always come across as very selfish to me. The best I can describe it, and I shit you not, is Gollum. Yep, the lesser being from Lord of the Rings.
‘My Precioouussss’
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I make fun of it, but I’m also dead serious.
She became obsessive about her own belongings. This followed through more so, to Dec 23 – May 24 when were in the thick of trying to sort out what the police actually still had. It was revealed they still had an old laptop of hers from 2010. I tried to explain to her that this wouldn’t be worth anything anymore and that she would probably struggle to even work it, but she wouldn’t hear anything of it. She was incredibly possessive and guarded over it. There was a part of me that wasn’t sure if this is just how she is now or whether there was something on it she was hiding. Obviously, the police would have seen everything, but I couldn’t help but feel there was something on it that she didn’t want anyone else to see. When she told me she wouldn’t help me arrange the collection of my dad’s belongings (despite being in prison at the time, there were things she could have done that would have helped, or at the very least, just be supportive of the fact that your children are struggling emotionally and mentally with trying to deal with the belongings of their murdered father), I was partly not surprised, and partly irritated with her. I spent 11 years supporting her through prison and campaigning for her so called innocence, the least she could have done was show a little kindness and empathy our way at this shitty situation.
She made it very clear that she didn’t want my dad’s belongings. But then the belongings were incorrectly released to her after she herself, was released. German law dictates that where there is no will, 50% goes to the spouse, and 50% is divided between the children. So, we should have been given the opportunity to see those items before they were all given to her. To then get a call not even 24 hours later from her lawyer to inform us she already had a potential buyer for one of my dad’s watches, was infuriating to say the least. She then spun this web of lies about how she was only selling them so that she could pay for the valuation of the 8 or 9 watches that were in the collection (we’re talking 300 Euro in total, split between the three of us and so we’re really not talking huge amounts, regardless, this should have been discussed with us first). She claimed that she wanted to pay mine and my brother’s part of the valuation. You might think this actually sounds really lovely of her, but the truth is, she hasn’t paid anything towards us in over 20 years, not just the 11 years she was imprisoned. She was in contact with me when I was in refuge, and she only ever talked about herself. There was never an offer of financial, emotional or mental support. Then I had the issue of financing a flat when I left refuge. I had to declare homelessness with the council. They interviewed me and offered me rent paid in the sum of £595 a month, to help guarantee my safety. This meant though, council housing and going on to the council housing bidding list (which is a terrible system). At that time, I was told I could only bid on certain types of properties and I wasn’t able to view those properties beforehand. Priority was given to other women such as those with families (and rightly so), but it meant there was very little suitable for me. When I tried to view private rental properties, no one wanted to take the council’s money as it was considered housing benefit/being on benefits, which apparently comes with its own damning label and prejudice. I had arranged to go back to work, but they had only given me a summer contract, and the estate agents all wanted to see permanent work positions. And so when the sale of the house in Germany finally went through, my mum divided up all the money, something I half expect she cheated my brother and I out of. What I was given was really not a lot and because of the summer contract, the estate agent wanted six months rent in advance each time and so I drained my inheritance doing that. I did what I had to, as anyone would, but my mum received substantially more than my brother and I, and yet there was no offer of financial help in any amount, no matter how small. I was left to struggle and I really did struggle, through refuge and that first year in that first flat after leaving. I remember a time when a group of my friends wanted to go for a boat ride in the next town over and so I joined them, but when it came to eating at the restaurant there, I felt so ashamed that I didn’t have enough to even buy myself a meal. So I told everyone I wasn’t hungry and I sat there watching them all eat their pizzas. A separate occasion with a different group of friends led me to another eatery. Again, similar sort of thing, I couldn’t afford even a meal, and we weren’t talking crazy prices or fancy places. Whilst it isn’t my mum’s job to bail me out, as a parent now, if my child was in that kind of situation, I would absolutely do my best to help them out, in whatever way I could. I feel so strongly about helping and protecting my children, as I’m sure other mums my age do, as well, but that’s what makes it all so hard to understand, why didn’t she help me, when she could have? Again, it’s this feeling that it was her money, for her, and she wasn’t sharing it with anyone. Ironically, she lost all her money when they arrested her again, and charged her for murder. She actually owes the courts money.
And so, the times when my mum could have helped financially, she chose not to, so it’s hard to believe she only had our best interests at heart when she chose to sell those watches. My mum is incredibly materialistic. The prosecution states/still states that her motivation for her involvement in my dad’s death was greed, and honestly, I can absolutely see how they would have reached that conclusion.
When I stopped talking to her in May 2024, after I caught her saying some really nasty things about me to my brother around the same time we were trying to sort out collecting the belongings, I simply stayed silent. She would send me a message every month. It was always some kind of love bombing or some kind of well-wishing for the kids. But I wanted my peace. My mum has disowned me twice in my life. Once when I was at uni because I said I wanted to restart the relationship with my dad and in her words we ‘couldn’t have them both’, and when she was arrested with her then bf for my dad’s murder in 2010. She didn’t speak to me from March 2010 – Feb 2012. So, the whole time I was going through Domestic Abuse, nothing. The investigation, nothing. The first trial against Graham, nothing. At the time, she was angry with me because she had made the decision to support Graham throughout the investigation and during his trial, AFTER it was explained to her that it had been proven he had flown to Amsterdam, hired a car, driven that car to our family home in Germany, and brutally attacked my dad. Somewhere along the way, it seems he acquired Chloroform, as well. So, my dad was actually attacked AFTER he was rendered unconscious. Can you imagine? Now I never swayed one way or the other towards her. I was never filled with hate towards either of them. I simply reserved all emotion and sat on the fence and waited to learn more. My mum was angry that I didn’t write to her in prison (can you IMAGINE?!), didn’t support her, who chose to support the man who attacked her daughter’s father. She used her right as fiancée not to testify against him in his trial. (CAN YOU IMAGINE?!)
Shall I also talk about how she wanted to punish me for restarting that relationship with my dad, so she took my dying brother’s sim card out of his phone when he was admitted to hospital, so that neither my dad nor I could contact him?
Or that three months after my dad died, in the height of the murder investigation, a German bank hounds me wanting to know where the repayments were for the 50k loan I had apparently taken out a few months before my dad had died. I had to fight them to prove it wasn’t me and so I asked for copies of the paperwork. Low and behold, anyone want to take a guess at whose handwriting I saw written as my name? Anyone? Will three guesses help at all? At the time, I didn’t pursue it because it was too much for me to deal with on top of the Domestic Abuse and the murder investigation followed by the trial. I was already only functioning due to extreme shock and disassociation. It was simply enough for me to have my name cleared.
Then there is the fact that she hasn’t once consoled or comforted us when the grief of losing both our dad and then our brother, got too much. Two days into being in Germany after being interviewed (no, interrogated), by the police, three days after finding out he had died, and I’m in a tiny B&B having to tell her to stop shouting at my brother because she demanded he look at the ring binder of bank transfers she had discovered that proved my dad was syphoning all his money off to his girlfriend on the other side of the world (he was kind of in his right to because they were separated, but she saw everything as hers). Earlier in the day, she had dragged us to his office insisting we had to turn it upside down to find a will because ‘there must be one’. Sat in an office under police surveillance and guard where I went and sat on my dad’s chair staring at all the last things he touched and how he had left the room, filling up with so much grief and sadness, and then I get a porn mag thrown in my face, which also has a cd attached to it. Rampant with rage, she insisted by shouting at me that I look at it, to see what a filthy man he was, and she was more outraged that she didn’t get the reaction from me she wanted.
‘It’s porn. You were separated. He was entitled to read porn mags if that’s what he wanted to do’. It did not help her fury that the cd attached to the mag, was in fact, a home made one. But honestly, I couldn’t have cared less in that moment. She wanted him to be the big bad wolf. She wanted us to finally side with her about what a nasty person he was and all the bad things he did. I have always been aware of the sort of person my dad was. I know what he did. I know what he did to me. I can’t help the fact that he was still my dad and I still loved him. But my mum hated me for it.
Or shall I mention the time a month later when she was emotionally blackmailing me on the phone to give her my power of attorney so that she could ‘pay all the bills and close down the business’, and if I refused, then I should go there and do it all myself?
There’s just so much. And despite a lot of it, or all of it even, I gave her my life, my time, my finances, I sacrificed being able to go on my own holiday because I put money into visiting her in prison. I put my own mental health at stake by going to the prison every time, when I was treated like absolute shit by the guards from the moment I arrived until the moment I left. Don’t even get me started about the time I got a bollocking off a guard for using the loo in the visitor’s room when I really needed a wee. I was marched straight back to the front of the building and forced to go through a search and detectors all over again. For 11 years. I did so because she had promised me, that she had changed. Somewhere half way through, I started to realise she hadn’t. Might have been before or after she told me on the phone that it was all my fault she was in there because my ex had helped her ex to form the accusation against her (totally missing the point as to why I had to leave my ex in the first place). What my ex had done wasn’t to punish her, he couldn’t have given a rat’s arse about her, he was doing what he was doing to punish me. For leaving. For citing Domestic Abuse.
I feel resentful to a point that I gave her so much of my life during her imprisonment. Deep down, I think I have never been really sure what my stance is about whether she was involved in the murder or not. I never felt super passionate about saying she was innocent. Deep down, certain things I’ve come to remember or learn about, just don’t make sense, they don’t add up. Her absolute lack of remorse and refusal to even discuss it, just further solidifies that feeling. Part of me feels like an idiot for having supported her, though I try to reason with myself by saying that no one, of course, wants one parent to be involved in the other parent’s death.
You might ask why I would want her involved with my children anyway therefore. It’s complicated. It’s fantasy more than it is anything else. My dad’s death to one side, my mum could never be the kind of parent or grandparent I see most other women having. I know that, deep down. But I couldn’t tell you how often in the past I have fantasized about her being a better person for me and for the kids. That she comes here and sees everything and finally tells me that she is proud of me. That she tells me how good a mother I am, what a good job I’m doing. Even when I stopped talking to her in 2024, there was still a little bit of hope that I carried with me that she might finally change and be the person I need her to be. Maybe that’s why I feel so angry and let down now, because in May this year, she proved to me that everything was very much still the same. For the first time, I decided to reply to one of her monthly messages and I used the opportunity to confront her about everything (everything I have mentioned above). She didn’t even acknowledge it. She kept love bombing me, telling me she’ll discuss it if I come on video call because she ‘misses my face’. And she kept repeating it again, and again. And I would message back further asking if she had anything to say on it and just get the same thing back. Sounds harmless enough to most, I’m sure, but I knew why she wanted a video call. Because it couldn’t be traced. There wouldn’t be a written record of what we discuss. And having me face to face meant I was potentially open to more manipulation and would also potentially give her the chance to see one of the kids. I couldn’t have any of that. The ball wasn’t in her court. It wasn’t even in the same fucking town. She was trying to steer things her way, once again, and I had to stand strong against her and say no. And I did. When she sent me her last message in that conversation telling me that it was okay, she would happily wait until I was ready to talk, this hit a nerve, because I was ready to talk, she just wouldn’t let me unless she had it her way. So I told her that in fact, it is not me who isn’t ready to talk, but that she is the one who isn’t ready to talk to me and that I was happy to go back to how it had been these past two years.
She has been silent with me ever since.
There have been no birthday messages to the kids. No asking how they are. To me though, the situation between us hasn’t changed. So I don’t really understand why she has gone from sending a monthly message knowing full well I won’t reply, to nothing at all (I appreciate this is really hard to understand because the emotions around this are so complex). I called her out on her behaviour. I said things I know would have outraged her. Incensed her. But I still expected her to act like the grown up that she is and own it and apologise for it so that we might have stood a chance at something, no matter how small. In some way, it feels like I was in control of the last two years and of that conversation, only for her to have taken the control back. Not even sure if that makes any sense whatsoever. But I haven’t been okay about her since that conversation. Most days she is buzzing around in my head along with so many conflicting feelings and emotions. Whereas, when I didn’t speak to her for two years, I felt pretty much at peace. A couple of people have told me to write a letter and burn it. I don’t think that’s enough for me though, because I have this need for her to know and understand what she has done to me, to us.
It’s now October. I was told in June that a trial is coming. Probably starting before the end of the year. I was contacted and asked if I could attend as a witness as I have a legal right to say no due to being related to the defendant, something no one told me in the last two trials. I have exercised that right, but I have yet to hear if it has been accepted. I won’t fight for her anymore. She knows that, too. I won’t willingly put myself on that stand again, only to be torn apart by the legal teams and judges, to not be believed anyway, and then to be expected to return to normality afterwards with not a shred of aftercare provided. If I am forced to attend a 3rd time, I’m not sure I can come back from this. I think it would break me in ways that I don’t yet understand. I’m waiting every single day at the moment, to be told it’s starting, to be told I have to/don’t have to attend. Every. Single. Day. It’s there. At the back of my mind. And I also ask myself time and time again, will it finally be over when this trial ends? Will I finally be able to try to move forward? Will I finally be able to start grieving?
Sometimes I feel a little envious of those who have better mums. Mums that care, that help out with the kids, that give you a break or an evening off. Mums that you can pick up the phone to and tell them you’ve had a shitty day (I have never been able to do that), Mums who will hold your hand through the absolute worst. Mums who will tell you how proud they are of you and be your biggest supporter, your biggest cheerleader. My life feels so solitary without it. I have to be so much more for myself, to carry myself through, and so much more for my kids, so that they don’t see what they are missing. Oh, what it must be like to be able to go grab a cuppa somewhere with your mum and have a catch up, have a meal out together, have laughs together. I’ve never known it. I don’t think I ever will.
