The Salt Path Scandal

We spoke to Raynor and asked her why she felt

her story connected with so many people.

It's that question of what we do when everything falls apart,

when life really hits the wall,

How do we stand up again? How do we go forward?

I think The Salt Path had such a universal, um...

theme to it, really,

and brings up so many of those shared human emotions.

On the programme tonight,

The Salt Path.

The Salt Path.

It's one of the best-selling non-fiction paperbacks.

Yes, Raynor Winn and her husband Moth lost their home,

their business, and learnt Moth was terminally ill

all in the space of a few days.

The Salt Path tells the story of how walking the coast

gave them new hope.

Now that memorable story of one couple's epic trek

along the South West coastal path has been turned into a film.

Gillian!

What's it like seeing Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs

portraying your story?

- Well, even now, it's not quite real. - (BOTH LAUGH)

A woman who, in the same week, had her home repossessed

and discovered her husband had received a terminal diagnosis.

What do you do?

They walked away, literally.

Setting out with a tent and small change.

The newspaper investigation has revealed questions

over the truth behind The Salt Path.

An Observer investigation suggesting she misrepresented

how they lost their home and casting doubt on his illness

has left many feeling betrayed.

"Unflinchingly honest" was the phrase used by the publishers

but a story broken by Chloe Hadjimatheou in The Observer,

now, questions have been raised.

Raynor Winn herself has fiercely defended the veracity of her book.

I think what's crazy about this,

is that each time I turn a corner with it,

I notice another thread dangling.

I pull and there's something bigger.

There just seems to be more and more revelations.

My best friend did it in her book club,

and I went, "That's my aunt!"

- Everywhere you turned, it was there. - Yeah.

What was it like for you guys when my first article was published?

I called my sister. I called her and said,

"Oh, my God, it's finally happening. Someone knows."

It's there now.

My name's Chloe Hadjimatheou.

I'm an investigative journalist for The Observer newspaper.

Back in March this year,

a member of the public got in touch with me

with a tip-off.

I was actually in the middle of planning a trip to Syria to do an investigation

and suddenly this message

just popped up on my social media.

It was a complete stranger who said they had a story for me

that I might want to look into and it was about a book

called The Salt Path.

When you get a source, like a tip-off,

I mean, my first instinct is not to trust it.

And at the time, I had absolutely no idea

what this book The Salt Path was,

and never heard of its author Raynor Winn.

Being honest, just didn't understand what the big deal was.

Definitely a favorite is The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.

It was visually captivating.

In my top five books.

Read the book.

It tells the story of how Raynor and her husband Moth Winn...

Lost their money and had their house repossessed.

And they hike, live rough along the coastline.

Discovered Moth had terminal illness.

Terminal diagnosis and they decided to just up sticks

and go walking the English coast.

Life can't get much worse, can it?

Readers loved it and the book sold more than two million copies,

but they fell in love with a story they were told was real.

And I was about to uncover something very different.

There are very, very few stories that actually pan out

and turn into something big.

So when I replied,

I had no idea that this message would end up

leading to one of the biggest scoops of my journalistic career.

The first thing this person said to me was,

the author of this "true story" had been making things up.

And they had pieces of key information for me.

The first was their real names.

They're not really Raynor Winn and Moth,

legal names are Sally and Tim Walker.

They also told me the name of the village

where they had started out in Wales, where they'd lost their house.

None of this is public.

And, I have to say, journalistically, my instinct is,

if your real name isn't out there,

what are you hiding?

That's the first thing that made me think maybe there's something in this.

First thing I did was go out and buy myself

a copy of The Salt Path and read the book.

In the courtroom, I watched as Moth picked

at a white fleck on the black table in front of him.

He'd been close friends with the man

who was making the financial claim against us.

I knew what he was thinking. "How had it come to this?"

So The Salt Path opens, uh, on this really quite tragic scene.

Raynor and Moth have just found out that they're losing their house

after somebody they considered a friend

essentially conned them out of it.

My anonymous source told me

there were these rumors about a story in Pwllheli, North Wales,

the town where Raynor and Moth

had lived for years before becoming destitute.

After I hung out in local pubs for a day,

I ended up getting a contact for the widow of a man called Martin

- who ran a local estate agency on the high street. - (LINE RINGS)

Her name was Ros, and she was really the first key person

that I spoke to in this investigation.

I said to her, "This is going to seem a bit weird,

an investigative journalist from London calling you."

If I'm honest, a big part of me thought she would say this was rubbish,

- there was no truth to the rumors... - (LINE RINGS)

and Sally Walker was a lovely person and there was nothing more to the story.

It was shocking to hear her tone of voice because it was clear

she's waiting for somebody to call.

(OVER PHONE) Yes? - Hello. I'm the journalist from London

- trying to reach you. - Yes.

I am currently investigating a couple who used to live in Pwllheli.

I thought you might be.

Their names have changed, haven't they?

Yes, they have. Yes. Yes.

What did you think when you heard a journalist from the Observer,

- looking for you? - I thought,

"I think I know what this is about, because the film had come out."

How did you know Tim and Sally Walker?

I knew Tim Walker first.

I worked for the National Trust and he was the gardener there.

He was always extremely well-dressed. A man always with a cravat.

- Did you like him? - Yes, he was pleasant.

Very pleasant.

And I think Sally started working for Martin in 2001.

What was Sally like? Very quiet.

Never really said anything.

- Did Martin like her? - Yes.

Seemed to get on with her.

But Martin generally liked most people.

He was very kind and generous.

Never wanted to let anybody down.

He was doing structural surveys for house buyers.

He was drawing plans for people to the point

where he had so many jobs

that one of his other staff

would just stick them up in lists down the wall

and go, "Have you done that, Martin?"

You must have been doing very well if he was that busy--

We should have been and that was the problem, we weren't.

We had no money for years and years and years.

And the first we really knew

something was wrong was in 2008.

Martin said, "I gave Sally the cash to go and pay in,

otherwise we would not be able to pay the wages."

And he said, "The cash didn't go into the bank."

Martin started looking backwards

through every cheque with the bank manager,

he said, "That's not my signature.

That's not my signature."

That's the point she said, "I will ring the police."

Martin and I took the books home for the whole time

she'd worked for us and started working backwards.

It took months.

In the end, how much was missing altogether?

We felt there was 64,000.

Had she been stealing for years?

She had, yes.

- What did you do? - Oh, we told the police.

- What did they say? - They said, "We'll arrest her."

- They took her into custody? - They did.

And...

All she said was "no comment" all day.

And as she was not considered a danger to the community,

we let her go home on the understanding she'd come back the next morning.

And he said, "It's a bit embarrassing we've lost her."

Hello. - Hi, how are you?

Hi, Chloe.

Ros gave me the number of one of Martin's former employees

who she says can corroborate what she's told me.

Tell me what it was like working for Martin.

Did Sally fit into the office quite easily?

Was she quickly one of the team?

They, as a family kept very much to themselves,

but she would just pass pleasantries.

She talked about her family, her children, mainly,

you know, and everything costing so much

and no money to do this, that or the other.

When was the first inkling that something was wrong

with the finances at the office?

Did-- Was there any kind of, um, clue

before Martin found out?

The one occasion I can remember

was when the accountants phoned