Betrayed Again. And Again.
One evening in late October 2000, as I was leaving work, the security guard told me that a man had come to deliver a package to me at bout 1:00pm. The security guard told me that he wasn’t able to locate me, so the man left, which was highly unusual.
Under normal circumstances, when someone delivers a package, reception signs for it and contacts the recipient. I suppose the fact that this man didn’t have a package to leave alerted the security guards that something was amiss. When the security guard gave me this information, I was surprised that the man didn’t leave the package. Part of my job was to order stationary for the entire floor, so I was accustomed to receiving packages. I left the building somewhat perplexed, but assumed that whoever it was who had a package for me would return the following day.
As a rule, I don’t normally answer my front door unless I am expecting someone. The reason for this is because I cannot afford to live on my own and have to live with other people. Most of the places where I have lived are transient houses, not much better than squats, and people tend to come and go at such an intensity that just about anyone could acquire a key, come into the house, and help themselves to whatever or whomever they want. If I happened to be upstairs in my room, minding my own business, I would not answer the door when someone knocked or rang.
On the morning in question, someone rang the doorbell, and since I wasn’t expecting anyone, I decided not to answer it. I didn’t know who it could be and I really didn’t care. If the caller wanted to see someone in the house, then he should have made an appointment with the person he wanted to visit.
That evening, however, I was expecting my boyfriend, Doug, and therefore answered the door even though I was not expecting him for at least another hour. When I opened the door, I came face to face with a middle-aged man with short, ginger hair.
The man smiled, looked me in the eye, and asked, ‘Are you Krystal Reynolds?’
‘Yes.’, I replied. As far as I was aware, I had no reason not to tell the man who I was, or so I thought.
‘Well, in that case, I have a letter for you.’ The man handed me a letter, which I realised was a court order from Clarke & Son, requiring payment of their extortionate fees.
‘I am also working for your ex-husband,’ the man volunteered, ‘and he would like for you to get in touch with him. He would like to give you some money. You see, you can take the money that he wants to give you and pay your legal fees with it.’
Was this man stupid or what? For the past three years my ex-husband had been insisting that he wasn’t going to give me a penny, and suddenly, he wanted me to get in touch with him so he could give me some money. I smelled a rat.
‘I don’t know where he is.’, I told the man.
‘He’s at the same place, 40 Mansfield Road.’, the man chirpily replied.
This man was so pleased with himself that he had tracked me down and handed my personal details over to my stalker, that he didn’t even bother to think about the implications of what he had done.
‘But I don’t have his phone number,’ I went on, ‘he changed it precisely so I couldn’t get in touch with him.’
As the man started to walk away, the smallest amount of bravery came into my otherwise timid personality and I asked the interloper, ‘How did you find me?’
‘You applied for a credit card. I just went over to 34 Kings Road and they gave me your forwarding address.’ I was incensed. Fair enough Clarke & Son had been able to get my personal details because I had applied for a credit card, but they had no right to forward my details to anybody else! When I applied for that credit card, I agreed that they could pass my details on for debt collection purposes, and as far as I was aware, I didn’t owe Jon a dime.
I decided that I had better tell this stupid, stupid man the truth. ‘Jon is not allowed to come anywhere near me, and he knows it. I really don’t understand why you were able to give him my address.’
‘Oh no,’ the man self-righteously replied, ‘I have a very official letter in my possession that your husband has written, stating that he is having difficulties with his solicitors and he needs to finalise the financial side of the divorce. That is specifically why he wants you to get in touch with him. It is all very official and above board.’
This man was a real nit wit! Anybody, and I mean anybody, could write a letter and he would hand over any personal details they wanted, providing the price was right.
I then took the opportunity to invite the private investigator into the place that was supposed to be called a home, which was in fact a shabby, run down squat that was falling down around me, a place where all I could afford to rent was one room in it.
‘Look around you. Do you think I have the money to pay that bill or a have place to put my things? Everything I own must go into one small little rented room in this house. I don’t even have a phone!’, I declared to that stupid, stupid man. I wanted him to get just a small glimmer of an idea of what he had done. It was pointless, though, because the private investigator saw only what he wanted to see.
If what this man had done wasn’t bad enough, I was in for another slap in the face. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ve got Mr Reynolds’s phone number at home. I will give him a ring tomorrow and ask him if it is all right if I pass it over to you. Then you can phone him and speak to him about the money.’
Maybe this man was beginning to realise that what he had done, but since Jon had written him some official looking letter, he was standing by the ethicalities of his actions.
‘I can’t see Jon giving me his number,’ I replied. ‘He changed it specifically so that I couldn’t phone him. He tells people that I have been making harassing phone calls to him!’
‘I’ll phone him and see what he says,’ the man assured me, ‘then I’ll phone you on your mobile tomorrow and give it to you.’ The private detective even had my mobile number!
Funny, I don’t recall anyone ever asking me if it was alright if they gave my personal details to my ex-husband, a man who I was no longer married to and had no business with me whatsoever. I really couldn’t understand the logic in what this man was saying. I have no doubt that if I offered him money, he would have quite happily handed over any personal details of anybody who I happened to enquire about. I, however, wasn’t prepared to give my hard-earned cash to this reprobate and I really couldn’t care less what my ex-husband was getting up to.
The whole situation was getting even more and more unreal because the man decided that he would tell me a few more things about myself, just in case I didn’t know the already. ‘You never have your mobile turned on. I have tried to ring you every single day, and it is never switched on.’
I didn’t reply to the private detective’s remark. The fact of the matter is that I never had my mobile switched one because I was always forgetting to charge up the battery. If I left it turned off and only used it when I needed to make a call, then the battery would last a week or so before it needed charging. As far as I was concerned, it was only common sense. There was no law that said that I had to have my mobile phone turned on anyway!.
As a parting shot, the man informed me, ‘You move around a lot.’
Did this nit-wit think that I didn’t know that? I didn’t even bother to go into details with the imbecile exactly why I moved around a lot because it was just too upsetting. I was particularly distressed because this man had apparently been following me for quite some time, checking up on my whereabouts.
This so-called private detective was probably the person who followed me into my place of work. I was particularly annoyed about that because I worked through an agency and my place of work wasn’t readily available to the public. In his zeal, the private detective probably followed me in the morning from home to work, during my lunch break from my work to my lunch, and after lunch back into my place of employment. If that is not stalking, then I really don’t know what is.
The following day, I rang Clarke & Son to complain about the way I had been treated by their firm. I didn’t feel it was necessary for the so-called private detective to follow me into my place of work and considered it harassment. While on the phone, I burst into tears, which is quite uncharacteristic of me because almost four decades of dealing with abusive personalities has taught me to keep my emotions in check. I normally try to put on a brave face, but this time it was just too much for even me. Not only had I been raked over the coals by my ex-husband, I had also been shafted by my former solicitors.
As I sat at my desk, tears streaming down my face, a co-worker brought me a glass of water and some tissue. That was one of the few unsolicited acts of kindest that anyone had ever shown me since I had been in England, or in my entire life for that matter. People who were supposed to have been my friends just turned their backs on me when I needed them the most, and here was a person who didn’t even know me, taking the time to calm me down and see if I was alright.
I didn’t feel safe anymore in Reading, knowing that my former solicitors and ex-husband knew where I lived and worked. There was no question of me moving to another house because the rent in Reading is extortionate. Having nowhere to turn, I decided that I would take the £1,000 that Jon was offering me with the full knowledge that it would not come anywhere near covering my legal expenses.
When I was presented with the Consent Order, I read it thoroughly before signing it. It said that I would have to relinquish any rights to the property on Mansfield Road, which had been intentionally put in the Order. I just couldn’t sign that piece of paper. Everything that I had been through was worth more to me than nothing, which is what I would have received whether or not I agreed to the Consent Order. I therefore decided to disagree.
One morning in late November 2000, I received a letter in the post. When I opened it, I saw that it was a letter from the United States Veterans Administration. It was then that I realised that Jon had opened the letter, which had been sent to me in October 2000, and had resent it from a place in Harrow.
The letter was posted on his 41st birthday and was a clear attempt by Jon to say, ‘I know where you are.’
If Jon had been sincere in his attempt to return the letter to me, he would have sent it in its original envelope with a note apologising for having opened it. The fact that he sent it anonymously in another postal area is a clear indication that he had something more menacing in mind.
Even though Jon told the private investigator that he wanted my address so he could give me money, it had been well over a month and I hadn’t heard a peep out of him with regard to the money. If he had been sincere about wanting to give me money, he could very well have written me a letter with a proposal. Since the only contact that I had with him was through an anonymous letter, I can therefore only assume that his intentions to give me money were not genuine.
I was very upset about Jon opening my post and sending it to me in the manner that he had. I telephoned the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, who felt that I had a clear case of harassment. I telephoned the post office only to be told that while opening other people’s post was an offence, they were not prepared to take any action on it and I needed to contact the police. I went over to the police station in Reading, only to be told that although it was an offence to open other people’s post, they were not prepared to take any action on it and I needed to contact the Post Office or speak to a solicitor. It was such an unreal situation to find that although two government bodies agreed that Jon had broken the law, they were not prepared to do one thing about it.
In December 2000, I received a letter from the County Court in Basingstoke, stating that my court date had been set for 5th February 2001. I knew that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning the case against all of those solicitors and barristers who no doubt socialised with one another. I nevertheless began preparing my defence.
It was during the preparation process that I forced myself to re-read all of the legal documents that had been just too painful for me to read the first time around. While reading the letters and affidavits, I was horrified by all of the awful things that had been said about me, which simply were not true.
The affidavits contained letters that had been stolen, photocopied and used in the affidavit, which was an offence and wasn’t originally picked up by my former solicitors. Jon had openly admitted in the affidavit that he gave his mother a monthly income even though she was living on benefit, which is fraud. He made blatantly untrue statements about me, which included stating that he had paid for me to spend the night in a hotel room because I had allegedly gone to a cosmetics convention. I am not disputing that Jon paid for a hotel room for the night, but it wasn’t me who he shared it with.
One thing that Jon had said about me, which I knew to be untrue, was that I had earned £16,000 a year while I was employed by Philips Consumer Communications. The fact of the matter was that I only earned £14,500 a year and could prove it by producing my contract of employment.
That evening, I pulled out the grey filing cabinet that Jon had bought for me three years earlier, and contained all of my important documents. To my astonishment, every single piece of paper that made any reference at all the Philips was missing. These papers had been appropriated by someone and I believe that someone was Jon.
I tried to mentally backtrack when the papers could have been taken, and feel that they were taken while I was living with Joan on Knight Street. Although I would not put it past Joan to commit such a despicable act and steal those documents for Jon, I am quite confident that her only motivation would have been for financial gain. The fact that Joan had displayed an uneasy paranoia on several occasions indicates to me that Jon most definitely had a part to play with regard to Joan’s bizarre behaviour and her subsequent eviction of me.
It was at that moment that I realised that Kim’s allegations that someone had broken into her home were true. If Jon didn’t break into the house personally, he certainly had the wherewithal to employ someone to do.
In addition, whoever had been harassing Kim had made sure that dead animals had been placed on her doorstep, which quite easily could have led back to me because years earlier, individuals had left dead animals at my place of work as a clear attempt to intimidate me. Where the person who left the dead animals on her doorstep erred, however, was the fact that he had written ‘road kill’ on the window, which is vernacular that I would never have used.
Someone had also written Kim some very threatening letters, of which I was the prime suspect. As far as I am aware, when my handwriting was analysed by the Office of Special Investigations there didn’t appear to be any correlation between my handwriting and the writing of those letters.
When I went to the police station in Reading to report the theft of my documents, as usual, they didn’t take me seriously and refused to take any action. The officer at the desk told me that since I didn’t have any proof that my husband was in fact the one who stole the documents, the police couldn’t go in and search his home.
It seems to me that even though just about everyone believes that Jon is guilty of committing all of those offences, the legal system is so slack that he is able to freely walk the streets, possibly terrorising other women. If the laws had been designed to protect honest people, Jon would never had got off Scott free for the sexual offences that the police in Basingstoke know he committed. He would never have been able to steal my mail, break into my home and steal important documents. It was at this point in my life that I lost all faith in the police, solicitors and the legal system in general.
One evening a young woman I know hysterically screeched, ‘Everybody knows the police don’t protect anybody from anybody!’
This angry young woman had absolutely no idea just how insightful and accurate those words were because in my experience, the police really don’t protect anybody from anybody.
Whenever I spoke to people about the awful experience that I had with my solicitors, they all said the same thing. Solicitors don’t do anything except to charge a lot of money to write a few letters. If a person wants anything done, he has got to do it himself because the solicitors won’t do it for him.
I have also come to realise that the only true winner in any divorce is the solicitor. Solicitors are going to advise their client to do what is the most convenient for their own business and not necessarily what is best for the client. It doesn’t matter what kind of God-awful job they do, they are going to make sure that they get their money.
Although I had gone over all of the legal papers with a fine toothed comb and prepared my defence for my impending court case, I wasn’t optimistic. I knew that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of defending myself against the solicitors and barristers who were friendly with one another.
I imagined that when my landlady discovered that a County Court Judgement had been lodged against her house, she would just go livid and evict me in the same manner that all of the other landlords had.
In principle, I knew I was right, but I just couldn’t bear the though of having to go to court and rehash all that I had been through. Not wanting to be humiliated in court, I telephoned Clarke & Son and proposed to £50 a month until the bill was paid, inclusive of interest, which I thought would spare me a judgement. Even though Clarke & Son agreed to allow me to pay £50 a month until the bill is paid, they still went ahead with suing me for the money, which means that I now have a bad credit rating.
In January 2001, I had a free 15-minute appointment to see a solicitor about the fact that Jon had perjured himself in court documents, libelled me in letters, stolen my post, and had stalked and harassed me. I felt sure that with all of the evidence I had, surely something could have been done to bring about justice. The solicitor, however, wasn’t very helpful. She told me that she only specialised in family law and she felt that I would just spend a lot of money and get nothing out of it.
Even though the solicitor wasn’t prepared to put herself out to do anything to help me, as a parting shot she suggested that maybe I should go and get some counselling to help me to get through the trauma of what I had experienced. I know that the woman meant well, but somehow I felt that it was a catchall statement that she routinely fed out to desperate women as a panacea, a metaphorical band aid when there was nothing else to say. To be honest, I didn’t need counselling, I needed retribution.
In February 2001, the calls started again. Since I didn’t have a phone at home, someone had appropriated my number at work and had started ringing me there. When I approached the Premises Manager at my work about the nuisance calls, he did a little research and discovered that the individual who had phoned had dialled a code that kept his number from illuminating on the caller display. Because the caller had intentionally concealed his number, it didn’t appear to be the case of an individual merely dialling the wrong number.
Four days after I had lodged a complaint at my work about the calls, I was called into a meeting to see the Human Resource Manager. I was informed that since they were operating as a business, they couldn’t stop people from phoning me. I was also amazed to discover that they were not legally allowed to trace personal calls and were powerless to do anything about the nuisance calls that were coming in to the phone assigned to me. To add insult to injury, the manager interrogated me about my work history and I was made to feel insecure about my position within the company. I almost got the impression that some maniac stalking me was enough for my employers dismissing me on the spot.
Once again, Jon was free to do whatever he wanted and I was powerless to do anything about it.
I was so upset about the fact that Jon got off Scott free when he had harm Kim, me and goodness knows who else, that I wrote a letter to General Michael Ryan, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, and asked him to re-open the case that had been unresolved in Geilenkirchen Air Base in 1993. I received a letter back from his designated representative, stating that although they were sorry for me, there was nothing that they could do to help me. Gee, the United States Air Force has in the past interfered in my life by:-
I was so upset with the way that Clarke & Son handled my case that I filed a complaint with the Office of Supervision of Solicitors. After they looked into the matter, they decided that even though Clarke & Son had failed to secure a settlement for me, they still had not done a bad job. It was explained to me that the laws in the United Kingdom are not very pro-women, which is why Clarke & Son were not able to get me a settlement. To add insult to injury, I was told that because I refused to sign the Consent Order, my ex-husband is legally entitled to find me wherever I am, and sue me. I think that is totally unbelievable!
I wrote Clarke & Son repeatedly and asked for the name of detective agency who sold my personal details on to my ex-husband, and they never responded to one of my letters, asking for that information. After six months, they forwarded that information onto the Office of Supervision of Solicitors, who told me that the name of the firm was Ashlin Consultants in Basingstoke. Clarke & Son subsequently told the Office of Supervision of Solicitors that they ‘didn’t know’ that Ashlin Consultants was working for both them and my ex-husband at the same time, as if that was supposed to make me feel better.
I have subsequently filed a complaint with the Legal Services Ombudsman.
I spoke with Jane Griffiths, Reading’s Member of Parliament. She agreed with the Office of Supervision of Solicitors when they said that the laws in the United Kingdom are not pro-women. She told me that a lot of men are able to intimidate their ex-wives to sign Consent Orders that leave them with nothing. She also noted that although my ex-husband had been harassing me, I had still refused to sign the document.
I filed a complaint with the Information Commission for the fact that my ex-husband was able to fraudulently obtain my personal details. I filed a statement with an investigator with the Information Commission, but was informed that the detective may have committed a crime, and he would look into it. He did, however, inform me that the detective agency was in the business of looking up information, and he was therefore entitled to sell it to anybody that he wished, even if that somebody happened to be a stalker.
I have since received a letter from Experion, the company that holds my personal details on its database. The company has informed me that it is legally entitled to keep my personal details on its database, and it is legally entitled to sell my personal details to any company or person that pays for that information.
So there you have it. Experion, a company that I had never heard of, is legally keeping my personal information on its database, and legally sold it to Ashlin Consultants, who legally sold it to Jon Reynolds. Wow. The amazing thing is, at no time did I ever give Experion permission to put my personal information into their database and sell it to the highest bidder, but apparently, they are legally allowed to do that.
It’s rather chilling, really, to think that any murderer, rapist, or stalker is legally allowed to employ a private investigator to legally purchase information from companies like Experion, so they can locate vulnerable, single women on their own. The information that these companies are legally allowed to have on private citizens is frightening, and the people who they can sell it to is horrifying!
And lastly, I filed a complaint with the Association of British Investigators against the detective agency that gave my ex-husband my personal details. The detective who inappropriately passed on my private details wrote to me and told me that he did not intend any malice when he did it. As of this writing, that is the closest that anyone has come to apologising to me for all the trouble that they have caused me.
Never let it be said that crime doesn’t pay. It does pay. It pays very well. There is no doubt in my mind that Jon must chuckle to himself every single day of his life when he thinks about all of the things that he has done to harm women. His happiness must surely turn to elation when the thinks of all the times that women have reported his activities to the police and they haven’t responded. Jon must surely be thrilled to bits that the legal system today allows a man to harm a woman and there is nothing that a woman can do about it.
Among other things, Jon is a misogynist. He gets involved with women and then, little by little, destroys their personalities until they are merely bodies without souls. Jon has so much hatred for women in general, but the root of the problem is the one person who he cannot admit to hating, the person who he really wants to harm every time he inflicts pain a woman. The one person that Jon really hates is his mother.
