Fact and fiction: Raynor Winn won't talk to us. But here's what she said about our story

After our exposé of the inaccuracies behind a couple's walk to salvation, their defence raises new questions

- Chloe Hadjimatheou

Before The Observer published its investigation into The Salt Path, we sent Sally Walker, who publishes under the name Raynor Winn, a detailed list of questions and asked her to respond. She chose not to speak to us.

On Wednesday the author published a 2,300-word essay outlining her rebuttal of the investigation. In it, she called our article “grotesquely unfair [and] highly misleading”. This is our response, all of which was put again to Winn before publication.

An offer to talk

In her essay, Winn says The Observer was offered the opportunity, through her lawyers, to discuss the allegations against her before we published our story and that we “chose not to take it”. This is incorrect. We first contacted Winn in March, at the start of our investigation. We offered six times to meet and engage with her, and agreed to a proposal by her lawyer for an “off-the-record” conversation.

The embezzlement

Responding to our central allegation, Winn accepts she made “mistakes” while working for Martin Hemming, the owner of a business who accused her in 2008 of embezzling tens of thousands of pounds. “Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret,” she writes. “I'm truly sorry.”

Moth's health

Winn published three medical letters on her website that relate to her husband Tim Walker's neurological condition. The letters show that Walker, referred to as Moth in The Salt Path and later books, had received treatment at various points since 2015 for corticobasal syndrome (CBS).

CBS is a name given to describe various neurological conditions most commonly caused by corticobasal degeneration (CBD). CBS can, however, be caused by other neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's. In the doctors' letters, Moth's condition is mainly referred to as CBS, but one doctor refers to it as CBD.