Family say trusting Salt Path author was a huge mistake

The family of Martin Hemmings, who accused The Salt Path author Raynor Winn of stealing £64,000 from his business in 2008, have said that trusting her was their “greatest mistake”.

- MAIRA BUTT

Winn has been under fire after an Observer investigation found apparent inconsistencies in her bestselling memoir, which follows her and her husband, Moth, on a 630-mile trek of England’s southern coast after being left homeless and financially destitute after a bad investment.

The report alleged that the couple lost the property after Winn defrauded her employer of £64,000, which she attempted to repay after taking out a loan from a relative.

The author has called the claims “highly misleading” and “grotesquely unfair” in a statement posted on her website on 9 July. She said that the loss of their home was unrelated to the “mistakes” made while she was employed at Hemmings’ estate agents in Wales.

“I think she’s just trying to put the best spin on the question,” Ros Hemmings, wife of Martin, told BBC Wales in response. “The mistake was that we ever employed her, and the biggest mistake my husband made, because obviously I’d recommended her in a way, was that he trusted her.

“I can’t forgive her for sort of destroying my husband’s confidence in people, because it did. I think that’s partly why we didn’t talk about it. He was so embarrassed that this had happened to his business.”