“It was our best friend.” Two young British, Jessica and Gemma Thomas, expressed their sadness in the BBC, almost a week after their mother’s conviction at 30 months in prison for “breach of trust.” Katherine Hill, 53, was sentenced to reimburse the 60,000 euros of inheritance that stole her two daughters of 26 and 23 years for years.
However, the two young women describe a loving mother from which they were close. “Nobody expected it,” said Gemma, from the little town of Alltwen, in the Swansea Valley in Wales.
A ruined heritage for years
When his grandmother Margaret Hill died in 2014, his mother Katherine was in the middle of an instance of divorce with his father Chris Thomas. The girls were still a teenager: Jessica was only 12 years old and Gemma, 15. Only Gemma had heard of this inheritance story vaguely.
After the separation, they continued living with their mother for about six months, before moving to their father because their mother often left them alone for long periods to go see their new partner.
“At first, she went out only for meetings, and I was the age of telling me ‘great, my mother will leave tonight, I can invite friends.” I liked it, “Gemma explains. “But he became every weekend, sometimes he begged him to stay with us, even once once.”
“It was clear at that time that we were no longer so important to her,” Deplora Jessica, who remembers, for example, that on her 13th birthday, her mother took her to spend the day outside, then she told her that she had to go early to go to (her boyfriend) and her family. “
“She stole a chance”
Before his death, his grandmother Margaret Hill, who had no more relations with his own daughter Katherine for years, therefore, wanted to read the equivalent of 60,000 euros to his two granddaughters. Therefore, this woman had chosen to place the money in a trust account with Katherine as tutor, and money should have returned to Jessica and Gemma in their respective 25 years.
Except that little by little, the young women began to realize that their mother had a lifestyle rather than comfortable along with their new partner. Jacuzzi, bar in the garden, luxurious vacation … and according to Gemma, “he didn’t spend much for us … surely not 50,000 pounds.”
At first, the two teenagers did not suspect that no more than the day Gemma asked their mother to have access to money before expected, the latter’s tone began to change. Katherine began to say that “this money was not his”, before blocking his number.
Heavy psychological consequences
Today, the two sisters are angry and are very painted by their mother’s behavior and lies, whom they trusted. “I will never have a relationship with his mother again,” says Gemma. “It was a shock to discover that money existed … and that it had disappeared,” Jessica deplores. “She stole a chance that few people have.”
His father has always supported them during legal procedures. But today, Jessica says she suffers from blows and problems to trust others, while Gemma is an emotional dependence in terms of friendship.
“The difficult thing is to remind the mother we had and not recognize the person in court. I even asked myself: ‘What happens if we were wrong?’ But it must be accepted that she has done it.
If the girls are relieved that their mother has been convicted, they do not hide their astonishment because it continues to proclaim their innocence. “When we knew that I was going to be imprisoned … it was as if they told us: ‘You are not crazy’,” they testify. “Our relationship had already deteriorated, but we could have repaired it. But now, it is impossible,” they regret.
Source: BFM TV
