December 2010

‘My life has been destroyed’ says horrified wife of abuser husband she married at 17

THE WIFE of paedophile Alan Wills has spoken of how her unemployed husband abused young girls in the family home while she was out working 12-hour shifts.

Heidi, who met her former husband in Penzance at the age of 17, has now fled the county with their young son to try to start a new life.

She has to come to terms with her husband’s depraved acts – and the knowledge that their young son was in the room while the abuse was going on.

Wills was a member of a paedophile ring that has finally been brought to justice. Four men have been jailed, while another has been given a community order, a sexual offences prevention order and made to sign the sex offenders register.

Another defendant from St Agnes, and latterly living in St Austell, was found not guilty.

Heidi, 27, was unaware Wills, 46, was grooming girls as young as eight while she worked as a carer.

Since the sickening revelations she said she has been forced to move out of the county after receiving death threats.

She said: “My whole life’s been destroyed and I had to start a new one. I had the upheaval of moving my little one and go with only a small suitcase of clothes because people were threatening our lives.

“I worry a lot for my son. He’s the only thing that’s kept me going through this mess.

“Hearing that he was in the same room when some of this stuff happened was worse than finding out I was married to such a man.

“Thankfully he’s so young that he won’t remember it. He’s not going to remember his dad and that’s the way I want it to stay.”

She married Wills ten years ago, after meeting him when he worked as a taxi driver in Penzance.

Wills quit his sales job five days before Heidi found out she was pregnant in early 2008.

He made no effort to get another job, letting Heidi work 12-hour shifts up until two weeks before she gave birth.

She told the West Briton the long shifts and looking after their young son had left her too exhausted to realise what was happening.

“When I found out I broke down in tears. I felt physically sick. I became extremely depressed and haven’t been able to go back to work.

“I’m still having to see a counsellor every week. It just turned my life upside down. I wish that I hadn’t done so many hours, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

Police turned up on their doorstep to question Wills in April 2009.

When he returned from the police station he told his wife: “They’re going to stitch me up.”

They moved out of their Camborne home, which was later burgled and burnt down by homeless Mark Cox, who had heard rumours about the abuse. Cox has since also been jailed.

Wills moved to Spain where he hid from the police but officers continued to question Heidi about his whereabouts.

She said: “They were desperate to find him but wouldn’t tell me anything. I protected him for a while and then it just got too much for me and I called the police and broke off contact. In July 2009 – on my birthday – he handed himself in.”

She has moved hundreds of miles away and only plans to return to see family and friends. She has realised that a normal life here will be impossible for her.

She said: “Down in Cornwall I will always be that woman who was married to a paedophile and didn’t know anything about it.”