A shattered family and my contempt for a vengeful mistress
AmaN, his attractive wife, a strikingly pretty daughter and a handsome son. all are leaning together and smiling for the camera. it is surely an image to drive any mistress crazy. and drive Yvonne Graham crazy it did. Just the thought of her lover andrew Nelson with his family sparked in her the kind of deranged revenge we thought existed only in movies like Fatal attraction.
Graham and Nelson, both married and running their own successful multimillion-pound businesses, met in 2011 and began an affair. and, like so many mistresses, she wanted him to leave his wife. as co-owner of a care homes chain with a £2 million annual turnover, she was probably used to getting what she wanted. So when he refused, her venom knew no bounds.
Graham, a 45-year-old mother of two, orchestrated a 16-month campaign of harassment, even pinning up laminated posters claiming that he was a paedophile. She lettersalso sentto his anonymouswife, saying: ‘Where do you think he is when you’re working? he’s screwing that b **** ’ and ‘let’s hope your kids don’t find out’.
When mrs Nelson didn’t respond, Graham resorted to sending letters to her lover’s 85-yearold mother, his son, his neighbours, his children’s school and even his golf club. eventually she sent death threats and a message threatening an arson attack on his business. Rightly, she was this week sentenced to 18 months in jail for what the recorder described as her ‘appalling and monstrous’ behaviour. that must be some solace for andrew Nelson’s wife and children, who must now set about trying to patch up their family.
But what i find so staggering about this case is that Yvonne Graham behaved like the aggrieved partner. Why, when he chose not to leave his family, did she believe she was the wronged party?
i’m not for one moment making excuses for a married man who slept with another woman. andrew Nelson will have to live for the rest of his life knowing the pain he has inflicted on his family.
i feel no sympathy for him when he says his mistress’s campaign turned him into a recluse who contemplated suicide. No, my sorrow is for his wife and children. But for Yvonne Graham, the mistress, i have only contempt.
She is a grown-up woman who knew what she was doing when she started the affair. She must have known that men rarely leave their wives for their mistresses.
She is living proof that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned — yet what a price she has paid. She has lost the man she lusted after, her husband has left her and she is locked in a prison cell.