HOLY vindicated
As woman who accused her of HARASSMENT is sentenced for her lies, SONGS OF PRAISE star tells how she was ‘overwhelmed by an INSIDIOUS POISON in a nightmare worthy of JEREMY KYLE’ – but reveals her utter relief at being...
OVER the past few days, Diane Louise Jordan has felt relief of a magnitude she’s never experienced before.
She is overwhelmed that her warm, wholesome reputation, earned in the course of a 30-year career presenting Blue Peter and Songs Of Praise, has finally been restored.
Last week, Kayla Thomas was handed an 18-month suspended sentence at Cambridge Crown Court after pleading guilty to perverting the course of justice – after falsely claiming that the church-going grandmother had attacked her not just verbally, but physically.
The malicious lies have cast a shadow over the past three years of Diane’s life, turning a woman whose effervescence made her the ideal children’s television presenter into one who shunned public events for fear of people staring at her in judgment.
‘It’s been like living in a nightmare, watching my reputation being ruined,’ she says.
‘I’ve always been an optimist, whose cup isn’t just half-full, it’s overflowing, but for the first time I now know how people can feel depressed and hopeless. It felt like an insidious poison that overwhelmed me.’
She found herself the victim of a judicial mechanism most people have never heard of. Police Information Notices (PINs) are given out to those who have been the subject of a complaint, without the complainant being required to provide evidence.
The claims were preposterous, yet they were extremely difficult to fight in this form.
It was all the more distressing that Kayla Thomas, the woman making the allegations, is the girlfriend of Diane’s former son-in-law David Linton – father of her much-loved grandchildren. It hardly helped that Linton and Thomas also chose to air their grievances against her in public. For a private woman, it was unbearable. The ordeal has taken its toll. ‘I look in the mirror and I can see the impact etched on my face because of all this,’ says the 57-year-old.
‘I’m so thankful to have been publicly vindicated, because I never thought this day would come. But I’m still incredibly emotional and cry at every little thing.’
Her nightmare began in 2014, when two police officers knocked on the door of her remote Cambridgeshire home.
‘I instantly thought, “Oh my gosh, somebody’s died,”’ she says. ‘But they told me they’d come to issue a PIN, which I’d never heard of. I thought it was a parking fine or something. When they explained that a lady called Kayla Thomas had complained I’d been troubling her, I couldn’t believe it.’
Kayla was the new partner of David Linton, the estranged husband of Diane’s daughter, Justine.
Justine had been adopted by Diane after losing her genetic mother, Diane’s sister, at the age of two. Justine met David at 19 and married him shortly afterwards, going on to have three children during their nine-year marriage. But the relationship, says Diane, was difficult.
‘I can see why Justine fell in love with him, because he has a lovely, sweet, fun side to him and he really loves his children,’ she now says. ‘But she lost her confidence.’
In fact, Diane had already become aware of Kayla by the time that Justine and David split.
They had met in March 2014, when David asked Diane to take him, his friend and his ‘friend’s girlfriend’ on a tour of the BBC studios. ‘I showed them around, but I later found out Kayla wasn’t his friend’s girlfriend at all,’ she says.
IN FACT, she was the girlfriend of David, still then married to Diane’s daughter. Justine and David split up that same year, and Kayla moved into the house they had shared – and here, it seems, the antagonism began. In October, during court proceedings over their separation, Diane accompanied her daughter to the house to pick up her belongings.
‘It was arranged through the court, which ordered David and Kayla not to be there at the time,’ she says. ‘When we arrived, I left Justine and my youngest granddaughter in the car and went into the house to check he wasn’t there. He wasn’t, but Kayla was, talking on the landline. I told her she wasn’t supposed to be there and asked her to leave but she wouldn’t.’
That was the incident Kayla reported to the police which became the subject of Diane’s first PIN.
Kayla claimed Diane had been aggressive, poking and pushing her. ‘Of course it wasn’t true, but when the police came to my house, they advised me to sign the notice. They said it had no criminal implications, and that it was simply a notice that someone had made a complaint about me.
‘At the time, I didn’t want to make things any more difficult for Justine, so I signed it. Unfortunately, that gave David and Kayla the ammunition they needed to try to damage my name.’
Months passed and Justine and Diane’s husband, Giles, urged her to offer an olive branch to David for the sake of family harmony. Then, in August 2015, there was another knock at Diane’s door.
‘Giles and I were having a very rare lie-in when the police arrived again,’ she says.
‘They tried to serve me another notice and this time I could tell they were less sympathetic towards me – there was a sense they were thinking that because it was the second time, there was no smoke without fire.’
Kayla was claiming that Diane had been verbally abusive at a children’s sports day and then again when David and Kayla dropped off the children after a visit.
She also claimed Diane visited Kayla at her home and verbally abused her.
Again the notice was issued, even though there was no truth in the claims. ‘It was in the papers again, and this time, I started losing work,’ says Diane. ‘The only organisation I’ve had work from in the last year is the BBC and it’s the first time in my entire career that’s happened.’ Fortunately, she could prove that she had been nowhere near Kayla’s home – and it was only this that finally meant she could fight back. After taking advice from Cambridgeshire police, she agreed to help them prosecute Kayla for perverting the course of justice. By that time, the situation had become extremely stressful. ‘I felt I’d been dragged into a sort of Jeremy Kyle nightmare, in which David and Kayla were trying to discredit me in public and I was being forced to defend myself, which left me feeling so exposed,’ she says. ‘I remember going to the film premiere of Julia Donaldson’s Stick Man with my grandchildren and feeling as though everyone was staring at me. I felt violated, absolutely disgusting. I thought: “This is exactly what they wanted. They’ve won.” ‘Since then, I’ve kept a very low profile. I haven’t accepted any invitations, even to events the grandchildren would enjoy.’ Last week, when Thomas received an 18-month suspended sentence, and a tenyear restraining order to prevent her contacting Diane or speaking about her in public, Diane burst into tears. ‘I just felt shell-shocked,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t believe it was finally over and that my name was clear. ‘I was feeling so anxious about what her sentence was going to be. She’s a mother to a 16-month-old baby, with another one on the way, and it’s so important for mothers to be there for their children. ‘Of course, there were times I wanted her to go to prison for what she put me through. But I felt huge relief when she wasn’t given a custodial sentence. ‘Kayla is a young girl, and sometimes young people make silly mistakes. She has an opportunity to start again, to put things right, and I hope she takes it.’
DIANE’S forgiveness is testament to her Christian faith, which has been a source of solace throughout her ordeal. ‘It’s been my lifeline,’ she says simply. ‘Regardless of the circumstances you’re in, it brings a sense of peace.’
She is looking forward to spending time with her grandchildren free from the stress which has clouded their lives.
However, she is also determined to tackle the controversial issue of PINs, which she says are unfairly blighting lives.
‘The reality of the way these notices are used is that anybody who has any sort of grievance against someone, justified or otherwise, can walk into a police station and invent a story. That person will be issued a notice and that will remain on their record forever.
‘Although I’ve been vindicated, in terms of my work I’m still in the same position as before because the PINs haven’t yet been rescinded. They show up on certain advanced checks, such as ones done by charities, so I need to get them off my record.
‘Recently I’ve had hundreds of new Twitter followers contacting me to tell me their own experiences of PINs. When the dust has settled from this, I’m going to look into what can be done about them.’
Remarkably, she also hopes there will be a reconciliation with David and Kayla.
‘He is my grandchildren’s father and she spends time with them, too. They like her. If we carry on warring, they’re the ones who will suffer.
‘Forgiving her is for me, too. I don’t want to be eaten up by feeling vengeful and hating anybody. I don’t want to live under this cloud any more.’
I thought that people were staring at me... I felt violated I felt huge relief when she wasn’t sent to prison