Hunted beyond the grave
It was shocking enough when a British cyclist was shot dead by a hunter in the Alps... but then his own mother and sister accused him of being a rapist. Now the rest of his family have rallied behind him – and say the truth is even more twisted
Few people in the French Alpine resort of Les Gets were more popular than Marc Sutton. He arrived in the scenic area, which attracts legions of British holidaymakers, more than eight years ago. Along with his girlfriend Jo watts, he had become an integral part of this upmarket community.
The couple started a catering service, supplying champagne and canapes and other luxury fare to families staying in local chalets. It was called, quaintly: Chez Toi — ‘At Your Home.’ The venture was run in conjunction with their recently opened vegetarian restaurant.
The food, and the couple themselves, received rave reviews. ‘Cannot rate them or recommend them highly enough,’ read one online notice.
Outside the kitchen, Marc and Jo’s’ life together, in this spectacularly beautiful part of the world, near the town of Morzine, a short drive from Geneva, is captured on social media where there are photographs of the two of them snowboarding, hill climbing and enjoying barbeques on the balcony of their mountainside lodge.
‘I still can’t believe this is ours,’ Mr Sutton posted back in the summer. ‘Hard work does pay off and dreams do come true.’
How heartbreakingly poignant his words must seem to his partner Jo, the young woman with whom he shared those dreams, and the many friends he made in France and elsewhere.
Because last Saturday, Marc Sutton, who was 34, died in the most tragically random circumstances.
He was cycling in the mountains when, shortly after 6.50pm, a single shot rang out from nearby woodland. A split second later he was dead. THe
marksman was in a hunting party and had, apparently, mistaken him for a deer. The shooting is the latest incident in which French hunters have wounded or killed people, a pursuit which last season claimed 13 lives, including that of a 13-year-old boy.
Marc Sutton, originally from Caerphilly, south wales, was the latest victim, even though he was riding on a well-used bicycle track and was wearing high-visibility biking gear.
But, in the aftermath of the tragedy, a much darker story emerged about Mr Sutton’s alleged past.
It started, almost before his body was cold, with a message on Facebook declaring: ‘I hope you rot in hell Mark [spelled with a ‘ K’] Thomas Sutton. My only disappointment is that you died instantly. For any horrified people reading this, I’m not some vicious troll. I’m the woman who gave birth to him.’
Katrina Toghill, as she is now known after remarrying, added: ‘This man was a monster. A bullet aimed at an animal, You aimed well. Karma called on you.’
Could a mother have ever expressed such hatred for a dead son?
The reason she did so was revealed in an interview she and her 32-yearold daughter Katie subsequently gave to The Sun newspaper.
waiving her right to anonymity, Katie claimed she had been repeatedly raped by her brother when she was a child. He was an ‘animal,’ she said, and was now planning a party to celebrate his death; she would prefer that his body was ‘fed to pigs’ rather than him having a dignified funeral. The visceral brutality of that last sentence could have come from a blood-soaked screenplay by Quentin Tarantino.
The outburst laid bare a family at war.
Mr Sutton’s grief- stricken father John, 62, from nearby Newport, furiously denied the allegations which were ‘all lies’, he said.
Certainly, the individual his ex-wife and estranged daughter describe is unrecognisable from the popular, outgoing vegetarian chef everyone knew in his adopted France.
Or the ‘kind, happy, loving man’ his girlfriend said she fell in love with nine years ago.
Miss watts, 35, who grew up in Devon, issued a statement paying tribute to her boyfriend who was ‘not here to defend himself.’
Having to deal with his death, as well as the accusations about his past, has left her ‘ devastated,’ she admitted. Outside the wild Beets Kitchen, the restaurant she and Marc Sutton opened in the centre of Les Gets in June, a solitary candle has been lit in his memory.
So was he a monster? Only two people know the answer to that question — and one of them is dead.
It should be pointed out, however, that Mr Sutton’s father, a one-time painter and decorator, is not the only member of the family who vehemently protests his son’s innocence. Other relatives, inquiries by the Mail this week have established, support him in that view.
even a former neighbour has come forward and cast serious doubt on the veracity of the incendiary claims made by Marc Sutton’s mother and sister. That does not mean that what they said is not true, but fairness demands that those who believe Mr Sutton is blameless have a right to be heard given that the accusations were not reported to the police.
The rape allegations date back to the Nineties. Katie Toghill, who has taken her stepfather’s surname, says her brother started sexually assaulting her when she was eight years old at the home they shared with their mum in Caerphilly after their parents split up.
The abuse continued, allegedly, for the next five years, until she was 13, during which time she was repeatedly beaten, she claims, kicked, and had knives and screwdrivers held to her neck. The attacks stopped, she said, when she told her brother she was old enough to get pregnant ‘and everyone would find out.’
Katie did not tell her mother until many years later. WITHOuT
question she was the product of a chaotic, dysfunctional household. But the main casualty, according to someone who lived in the same street at the time, was young Marc Sutton.
‘It deeply saddens me to hear of Marc’s sister and mum speaking about him like they are, said the woman who contacted this newspaper.
‘I remember the neglect and hatred she [his mother] showed towards Marc, from such a young age.
‘From what I can remember he was seven or eight and she told him how much she hated him and she would openly tell anyone that would listen that she “is not a boys’ mum,” she only liked little girls. I remember him being a challenging young boy brought up by a terrible mother.
‘The children were often left outside to play in the garden while she constantly screamed at them.’
Mrs Toghill, 56, a reformed alcoholic, has been married three times and has five children from her first two marriages.
‘You would often see her daughter Katie wheeling a pushchair around our local town with a younger sibling in it while she was barely seven herself,’ the former neighbour recalled.
‘All the children looked dishevelled. Marc himself was taken into foster care. I do not want my name to be printed but I would like the truth to be told. I believe Katie and Katrina’s stories are lies. Marc suffered a lot through his life and lost an innocent childhood because of his awful mother. I don’t think he should be thought ill of in death.’
Could his traumatic upbringing have helped turn Marc Sutton into the sociopathic youngster described by his sister? Or do these revelations
suggest he is the victim of a vengeful, irrational hatred by the one person meant to love him most in the world?
In their interview earlier this week, mother and daughter cited the treatment of one of Marc Sutton’s ex-girlfriends, a university student, to support their accusations.
On a weekend visit home in 2010, they said, he punched the girl in the face during a row, shattering her cheekbone and damaging her eye socket, which resulted in him being jailed for six months.
He appeared before magistrates in Caerphilly, apparently, but the court’s electronic records do not go back that far — so this claim cannot be confirmed or dismissed.
A defendant facing such a serious charge would undoubtedly be committed to crown court for sentencing. The three crown courts which take cases from Caerphilly are Cardiff, Newport, and Merthyr. All have electronic files which go back to the Seventies but there is no record of a Marc or Mark Sutton ever being convicted.
He might well have been, of course, and has simply not shown up in the system, but we can find no evidence that he was.
His sister, who joined the Army at 17 as a medic, is said to have confided in her mother about the abuse on weekend leave sometime after he was ‘released’ from prison.
‘He went rummaging through my suitcase,’ she said in her newspaper interview. ‘My underwear was being thrown everywhere and it creeped me out and I snapped. He wanted to know what I was wearing under my clothes and it felt like he was undressing me again. I just burst out and told Mum what he had done to me.’
She said that afterwards her brother, who left school at 15 , fled abroad and changed his name from Mark to Marc to cover his tracks.
Some might think that if he really wanted to hide he would have changed his surname. Either way, members of Marc Sutton’s extended family have been left angry and shocked by recent events. On Facebook, several relatives, on his father’s side, have shared links to and ‘liked’ his statement that the allegations are ‘ all lies.’ They include Marc’s cousin Emma Sharland. Her husband told us: ‘I married into the family but I have heard nothing but good things said about Marc Sutton.’ Another cousin, Tracey Sutton, posted: ‘Lies by vile money grabbing people ... it’s disgusting, all on benefits so have to get their money from lies.’ For the record, Marc Sutton’s mother and sister, who has now left the Army and lives with her baby daughter in Nantyglo, a village in south Wales, are understood to have been paid about £5,000 for their front page ‘exclusive.’ Marc Sutton did indeed move abroad more than a decade ago. Whether he ‘fled’ or not is another matter. What we do know is that he met Jo Watts in Ibiza; the pair shared a passion for backpacking and the outdoors. They are pictured wearing matching slippers in Laos, south- east Asia, mountaineering at Everest Base Camp, and holidaying in Cape Verde, off the coast of Africa. In 2015, they announced on social media that they had decided to make the Les Gets resort their permanent home, one of 12 locations which make up the Portes du Soleil ski area on the Swiss-French border. So much for Marc going into ‘hiding’.
Mr Sutton, who had worked in kitchens since he was a teenager, and Miss Watts, who had been employed in the restaurant industry, started the Chez Toi chalet service almost immediately.
At 11.20am last Saturday he posted a photograph on Facebook of a new treat for his customers with the caption ‘Last batch of this summer’s homegrown tomato & chilli chutney to go with this winter’s cheese course.’ A little over six hours later he was dead.
The young French hunter who shot him has been named as Lucas Clerc, 22, and was being treated in hospital for severe shock. He faces jail if charged and convicted of aggravated manslaughter.
French Prosecutor Philippe Toccanier is reported as saying: ‘There was total visibility. The victim was wearing a coloured T-shirt and his bike and helmet also coloured.’
Tributes to Mr Sutton have poured in on social media.
One friend wrote: ‘Marc Sutton is an absolute top bloke, never heard a bad word against him.’
Miss Watts’s mother has now flown out to Switzerland to be with her. Detectives in Britain have also interviewed Katie Toghill at her home over the rape allegations. They offered support and told her the claims will be ‘fully investigated.
But the question many will be asking today is why did she and her mother wait until Marc Sutton was dead to make the allegations?