the Mike Kennedy con: 22-Mar-2009

TRUTH is a 100% defense to defamation or libel.
Accusing someone of defamation or libel when they are telling the truth or giving an OPINION, however, IS actionable.

My Story So Far

Following eight weeks of a total run-around by this man, I have published the following story to warn other women out there what can happen so easily. Please read and learn. If you have met this man or have anything to add - feel free!

Feeling at a loose end, I thumbed through my recent copy of Flying Solo and discovered a new entry for someone in my area. Sounded OK, right age bracket (60), own teeth, solvent, etc. so I telephoned the number. Following our conversation I agreed to meet him at my local pub. At least that way, I thought, I was being sensible and meeting in public place. Whilst the subsequent events would probably ring alarm bells with 20-20 hindsight, please be tolerant and allow for my myopia at the time!

At the first meeting we exchanged some of our history and I was shown photos of his new villa in Kefalonia, his recently deceased daughter, and snapshots of his aerobatic flying exploits. So far, so good. He told me he had been alone for 6 years and this was his first foray into the world of dating since his second marriage had ended in divorce. His first wife had died of cancer and he had brought up four children on his own. It had been an extremely happy marriage but he had learnt to live with tragedy and it had prepared him for the death of the daughter. He was insistent upon his abhorrence of lying, unfaithfulness, broken promises, etc.

We met again a week later in the same pub – he had been away working, instructing new pilots. As he had been a pilot for 40 years and had retired as a Senior BA 747 captain, he found this a useful money earner – even though, as he pointed out, money was not really an issue on a 70K a year pension!

After a nice evening and dinner, he left to return to the friends he was staying with. He said he was between houses, waiting to complete on a flat nearer to where he was soon to be taking up a new job flying a Dakota for a commercial venture. Then the phone rang – he had nearly run out of petrol and the local garage was now closed – did I know of anywhere else nearby? All the local garages were closed by this time, and I offered to run him home. When he suggested it would be easier if he stay with me and get petrol in the morning, it seemed an odd but not unreasonable request. He moaned about the unreliability of the car he was driving – lent to him by the garage refurbishing his vintage TVR – explaining it had a dodgy petrol gauge and apologising for the inconvenience. I couldn’t see much harm in his using the guest room, so agreed. After some years on my own it seemed a bit peculiar having someone else around, but there was a familiarity and it felt very comfortable.

Over the next few days he spent a lot of time with me and said he was very happy to have met me and we obviously had a long-term future together. This all seemed to be moving rather fast but it suited me to believe this was just someone being unusually honest about their feelings. Knowing that I am not comfortable with flying, he suggested he hired a plane and we went to France as a gentle rehabilitation. A plane was duly booked, flight plan filed, and I packed a case. For the next fortnight I had a case packed and ready to go, but last-minute hitches kept arising – summonses to fly something somewhere that only he could do, problems with his mother’s health, the plane he had hired had been damaged etc. But I persevered, making arrangements to stay with a friend in France, opening up my flat in France and generally trying to ensure that I would be comfortable with the trip as there would be an objective. The strain was enormous, but his apologies and excuses sounded so plausible that I stuck with the plan. He kept disappearing to be at his mother’s bedside in hospital and after one distressed call I thought I would do the decent thing and take him over some sandwiches to cheer him up. Knowing his mobile would be off within the hospital, I phoned A&E to find out which ward she had been admitted to. They had never heard of her. OK, so maybe I had the wrong hospital?

At about this point, I challenged him to deny he had a wife – the behaviour certainly seemed to indicate someone else in the background causing a conflict of interests. This produced emphatic denials – I was the only person he had been out with since the divorce, and “here are the divorce papers…” I pointed out that proof of a divorce 6 years ago went no way towards proving there hadn’t been a subsequent marriage, but he seemed so offended by my suggestion that I let it drop.

Following several days of problems with his mother, he took her to stay with her sister in Cornwall to convalesce, and arrangements for our holiday could begin again. However, this was delayed somewhat as he managed to get food-poisoning and ended up stuck at his daughter’s flat in Bristol (she was doing a degree at the university). Eventually he returned and filed a flight plan for the next day. That evening he got a call inviting him to play squash. I had already started preparing dinner, but he wasn’t going to be gone long so off he went. A couple of hours later, I got a call saying he was staying with his son as he had (yet again) been summoned to fly the next day and his son’s house was more convenient. After 3 days of excuses for delays in returning (but I was to keep my bag packed ready for the holiday as soon as he got back to me), I phoned some of the airfields he had said he was working for – Biggin Hill, Blackbushe and Selsey. None of them had heard of him!

During our time together, the only means I ever had of contacting him was an unreliable mobile phone which was always out of range, but my text saying I had found out something disturbing and needed to talk asap miraculously got through and he arrived within the hour. I then confronted him with my concerns – no reliable phone, no evidence of the TVR, no address, etc, and was told he could provide plenty of evidence, but only when he had unpacked his stuff at his new flat in Bournemouth the next Monday. He promised to return with a list of friends, family, business acquaintances, etc and I would be expected to phone them to prove he was genuine.

He promised to return with this proof the following Friday for a ‘special’ weekend, during which he would make up for having messed me about so badly because he really felt our relationship was too good to lose. Following comments from him about general lack of exercise, I suggested we went to a health farm for 24hours. Great idea! So I booked it for the Sunday night, reasoning that, by then, I would have been reassured. When he failed to arrive on the Friday or Saturday (plausible excuses again – migraine, problems with another son) I was assured he would arrive first thing on Sunday. The next thing I received was a text saying he had been summoned to Cornwall in the early hours and to go ahead without him. This seemed odd – if the phone was in a bad reception area, how did he get the summons? That afternoon I received a text saying his mother had died. Following my furious texts at his non-arrival, I now felt awful. For some reason, the funeral was to be held in Cornwall, so he would be there for a week, but could I book us tickets to France as he had learnt that the best thing to do was get away for a few weeks. We could drive down in the TVR and stay at my flat? Again I arranged for the flat to be cleaned, food to be put in the fridge, my boat put on the mooring…

Guess what? He phoned saying he was on his way, then silence… The next day I got a text from his phone asking who I was? This was supposedly from his son, who said his father had had a car accident, was in hospital, but expected out in a couple of days. I replied I was supposed to be going on holiday with him that morning and which hospital. I got the oddest text back – along the lines of “I am his son and because I’m a vet I have appointments and am very busy so I will tell him you called, but I don’t know you and it’s none of my business” Odd. So I phone Bournemouth hospital. No sign. I was frantic with worry but had no way of contacting him. Eventually he surfaced after 4 days – no apology, just a statement that he only had concussion and assumed I would have gone ahead without him! Apparently the BMW had been written off in the accident, so it now became urgent that he picked up the TVR and was on his way up to collect it with a friend and would pick me up on his way past.

During what I knew would be a long wait I amused myself Googling everything he had ever told me. Amongst the things I checked were:
· There was no electoral roll record of him ever having owned a house in Fleet – in fact, the ‘temporary’ one he said he had just sold has been owned by the same woman since 1995!
· There is no record of his daughter as a student at Bristol University (my son was there, so I knew the system).
· There is no record on the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons register of a vet with his son’s name anywhere in the UK.
· The TVR registration I was given does not exist. (A quick visit to the local garages confirmed no TVR was being refurbished where he said it was.)
· There was no record anywhere of his success at bridge with his partner Asaf.
· Not only did the supposed European Judo competition he entered not take place where/when he said it did, but the sick-listed person he replaced in the team had certainly been fit enough to gain medals at the competitions that year.
· I phoned the Civil Aviation Authority who informed me that he had no current pilot’s licence. When I asked if that meant he had never had one, I was told they couldn’t tell me that, but I should report this to the police as they (the CAA) could then take action.

He never turned up.

At this point I really got scared. What was the motive? A few bottles of wine and the odd subsidy when at the pub didn’t seem worth all the effort he had gone to. He had not benefited from the ticket/health farm purchases. But he knew where I lived, while I could confirm nothing he had said. I felt like a pawn in a nasty game, and the emotional toll had been horrendous. I bolted to France and my ex-husband sent him a text saying the game was up. This resulted in a flurry of texts, ending with a statement that Walter (good nickname, huh?) had taken legal advice and was going to go to the police and report my ex for threatening behaviour. “Please do” was the reply. Suddenly Walter backed down, full of concern for my welfare – was I OK? He stated that he had found out through Asaf (who was ‘something to do with Intelligence in the Middle East’ and ‘knew people who could go round and warn people off’) that he had tracked the texts to my ex and, out of respect for me, was calling the dogs off.

When I returned from France I made one last attempt to make some kind of sense of it all – I just couldn’t see the point of the lies. However, the arrangement got complicated because he was now staying with his sister whilst he sorted out the sale of his mother’s house, and he had hurt his back so he wasn’t driving. I arranged to meet him at Blackbushe Airport to talk – he would not allow me to pick him up from his sister’s house as his family didn’t meet each other’s friends…

The explanation? Yes, he had lost his commercial licence because the CAA had suspended him for not filing a flight plan – he had flown some people into the UK as a favour to Asaf. But he had still got his private licence because to have strung me along believing he could fly me on holiday in that way would have been too cruel. However, he had since had an eye problem and probably the CAA were referring to the fact that he had his licence removed until a medical passed him as fit to fly again.
And yes, he had lied about Bournemouth – he had exchanged on the flat but never moved in because he was under financial investigation and his accounts had been frozen – he couldn’t give me the details because he didn’t know if he could trust me not to tell anyone. This was all becoming a bit creepy as far as I was concerned.
At this point it all got too exhausting for both of us and I never did find out why his daughter wasn’t at Bristol, why he was not on the electoral roll, why no-one had heard of him at the airports.
And what on earth did I think his motive in all this was? Just because he had had some bad luck and was too embarrassed to admit to the mess he was in, why was I behaving like a vindictive obsessed woman?

A few days later, following another attempt by him to meet up with me again, I told him over the phone that I would publish the story to warn other women out there. This produced a major attack of hysteria and accusations that I was threatening him and using blackmail and now he would have to warn his children what I was doing. I pointed out that all he needed to do was tell me where the TVR was and introduce me to his sister and I would at least have something that I could believe. More hysteria followed, but I insisted that it would mean he didn’t have to tell the children, and would be so simple to arrange if true. It would be his choice whether I published or not. He said he would think about it and I have heard nothing since.

So, am I the vindictive “bunny boiler” he accused me of being? You decide.

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Sunday, 22 March 2009

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