“” – Laura Bailey

Part of Laura’s plan to have me arrested and charged was simply to remove the people who could contradict her story. Our assistant and our nanny were around all day, five days a week. They saw too much. So, in Laura’s mind, they had to go.

Her focus first turned to Lyn, our assistant. Laura would regularly try to convince me to fire her. I kept reminding her of what Lyn actually did. She took care of the daily admin, the animals, even giving Laura rides after her first drink-driving conviction. Lyn had been good to us for years. If Laura wanted to fire her, I told her she’d have to do it herself.

This wasn’t acceptable. Laura doesn’t like to do her dirty work out in the open. So instead, she went behind my back and ordered our nanny to do it. The nanny refused.

So Laura came back to me with an ultimatum: if I didn’t fire Lyn, she’d do it herself that day, without giving her any notice. Faced with that threat, I let Lyn go but gave her a month’s notice.

It wasn’t a surprise. A month earlier, I had told Lyn about the circumstances surrounding Laura ending our relationship. She asked what it meant for her, and I told her the truth: it meant I couldn’t protect her anymore. Now the time had come.

Laura’s response? She acted like she had no idea Lyn was being let go. Later, she told friends and family that I’d done it without telling her, that I was controlling, that I wanted to isolate her. In reality, it was her plan from the start. With Laura, every accusation is a confession.

I later found her scribbled notes, weighing the “pros and cons” of firing Lyn. It looked like a child’s homework assignment. Lyn’s actual work, managing most of our lives, barely registered. The main “pro” for keeping her was that she might be good at present wrapping.

Even Lyn’s exit wasn’t straightforward. She still had accrued paid holiday, so Laura told her to take it at the end of her notice so she wouldn’t have to pay it out. Lyn agreed, hoping to have a week off before starting her next job. But when her “last day” came, Laura changed her mind. Suddenly Lyn had to work that week after all. The reason? Laura claimed she needed to be “taught” how to change a booking on EasyJet. Something that takes about three clicks and two minutes. Lyn worked the week. She never saw that holiday pay.

On Lyn’s actual last day, our nanny and I got her a card and a Marks and Spencer gift card. The nanny offered it to Laura to sign and mentioned the gift card, in case she wanted to contribute. Laura’s response: “Oh, I had gotten Lyn a gift card, but I’ll just use it myself now.” She never contributed a penny.

That was how years of loyalty and service ended; erased by design, rewritten in public, and dismissed with a final, petty cruelty only Laura could muster. One more witness gone. One more silence she can bend into her own story.