Jim Perrin, we know, has led people to trust him and to believe in him. But we wonder whether the fact that his writing is in some quarters well-regarded (although, by contrast, the phrase: ‘he’s a purple-prose merchant of a high order’ has been used… ) should override the many grave failings in the character of the man? — character failings which for years (and decades) have been by some only too well known but which are at last now coming to more public attention.

We wrote in our post Jim Perrin’s Modus Operandi of what we believe to be his questionable professional conduct and we have in other posts touched upon his ‘domestic history’. It is some of this which we now describe.

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By compartmentalising the many women of whom he has taken advantage Jim Perrin has maintained control both during, and as well after, their relationships — and we have written elsewhere that some of them, when they thought they alone were his partner (on two other occasions, his wives) had no idea at all that they were in parallel households and were being duped so comprehensively.

Those who have contacted us explained, as did our own sister Jac, that the first months — they ranged from one but hardly ever longer than five or six — were happy ones, in which he charmed before he changed and became abusive towards them. In every case confided in us there were issues of ‘finance’, of ‘property’, and verbal, psychological (and in some experiences extremely violent physical) bullying. If he could not obtain what he wanted he threatened them, sometimes going so far as to say he would kill them or that he would kill himself, and he has exerted a continuing and malign control over the lives of many to this day with whom he has been involved in this way.

Some told us they found themselves detached from their family and friends and were for a time incommunicado. This (as well, when angered and histrionic, as the threat he had used to kill them or himself — the latter in our sister’s case, ‘with my little green-handled knife’) was definitely and most unusually for us what happened with Jac, as we were exceptionally close and used to chatting as sisters do; barely a day or so would go by without one of us, either by phone or in person being able to speak with each other. This was to change after Jim Perrin took control…

As ‘Melangell’ (an alias used by Jim Perrin on a comments thread in The Guardian) he wrote: ‘Anger at her decreased availability to others caused problems to both Jacquetta and Jim throughout their time together [he lived in her home for eighteen months] and there was much external interference.‘

There spoke the man who seriously abused our sister and her children; who actively discouraged visitors; who disconnected the telephone; and who wickedly changed the security code on her own car, without her knowledge, in order to prevent her leaving… This was not a house in a town, with near neighbours — there were none — but a remote moorland cottage.

He did his utmost to ‘compartmentalise’ our sister and although he was for a time successful, quickly she came to realise her situation, as we have explained previously on our site, and fought against it; thus his success was only partial — and oh how deeply it rankled, as is evident in his comment as ‘Melangell’.

Jac had a loving, giving and free spirit; she was essentially a happy and gregarious individual with innumerable friends whom she loved and who loved her in return, and we sisters saw how her life with Jim Perrin became constrained. She told us of so many incidents — some described throughout this site, some of which we witnessed ourselves — and the evidence all shows that Jim Perrin was unable to achieve or maintain a relationship of any length or normality.

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He always had to be in complete mastery, and with his eye on the main chance. Each of his relationships over the years (of which we have been told) has held the prospect of some advantage: either of pecuniary gain or residential security; of a useful connection including personal, or work related — that is, for one example, obtaining the desired introduction to a broadcasting institution. When the possibilities of a relationship had been exhausted and he left the woman concerned (or, in other cases they through fear, and/or further knowledge of his ‘hidden side’ left him) in no time at all he became involved with a new partner. We have a time-line, with verified details which have been given to us, and it shows quite clearly the long-established pattern of his life.

His ability to manipulate, apparently without a qualm, and to hurt others at will, seems to us to indicate a disturbing element in his psychological make-up: in other posts we have expressed our view that he could well have sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies, and in our opinion when one reads about the ‘psychopathic personality’ so many of the characteristics described would seem to match his own… (Ref. the Hare Psychopathy Checklist.)

Jim Perrin’s treatment of our sister and her children, and of others about whom we now also have first-hand knowledge, leads us to this opinion: the evidence of his emotional, mental and physical ill-treatment of those with whom he has had relationships, and of others — no:  ‘ill-treatment’ is too restrained a description of his actions over the years — should, we feel, be seriously considered in any current evaluation of this man.

He, of course (and quite understandably) denies it all and claims he ‘is the victim of malicious gossip that is being spread about’… Except: everything we have written about Jim Perrin is the truth — we are not simply indulging ourselves in ‘malicious gossip’, which would be reprehensible as well as legally problematic. Instead, we have been advised by our lawyer that Truth is an Absolute Defence.

Jac’s sisters.