Mike Wright, 62, (pictured centre) from Ashford, Kent, thought he was having a bad dream when his son was arrested for murder. But it was a nightmare that would tear his family apart and leave his son (pictured left) in jail and expose Val Brown (pictured right) as a scheming femme fatale.

I’d got home from work a little bit later than usual after a having a couple of drinks with my pals.

“I’d love a Big Mac,” I said to my son Simon as I wondered what I was going to have for tea.

Simon burst out of the front door and before I knew it he was back in the living room with a brown paper bag with a burger and chips in it.

“There you go dad! On me,” he said. He had jumped on his cycle and bombed round to the local McDonald’s in Ashford, Kent, where we live and bought me dinner.

That is the kind of lad he is. He’d do anything for you. He’s do anything to please you. He was 14 when he bought me that Big Mac and I’ve always thought it summed up his nature.

My wife Barbara, 56, and I have two sons, Simon, who is now 31 and our eldest boy Michael who is 34.

Simon had learning difficulties at school as a result of being starved of oxygen at birth when the umbilical chord got wrapped around his neck.

But he never let it hold him back and we have always loved our boys equally.

We sent Simon to a special needs school from the age of seven to 11 and after that he went to school with everyone else.

He had a lot of speech therapy and he fitted in pretty well and developed a good bunch of mates.

But he has always been easily led and a bit gullible but most people take to him because he is kind and helpful and has a nice way about him.

When he left school at 17 he got a job as a cleaner and bought a car. He loved work. He has always been a grafter and he was happy with his life.

We were ticking over nicely as a family. I work as a security officer at Eurostar in Ashford and Barbara is a medical secretary.

Then one day – it must have been around 2000 – Simon came home his usual happy self and told us he had met a nice woman at work called Val.

She was his new supervisor at the cleaning firm he was working for at they had met while cleaning the local Homebase store.

He certainly seemed happier than usual and I was pleased. He had had a few girlfriends by that time but nothing special.

Val was 20 years older than him and we didn’t think it was anything more than friendship – but we felt it was good that he was meeting people and making friends.

Simon was in his late 20s at the time. 

After a while it started to become something more than a work friendship and he would see her after work in the evenings.

He was clearly smitten with her and we became a bit worried not just because of the age difference, but because Barbara sensed she was married.

“I think Val’s married,” she would say to me. “Call it a mother’s instinct.”

Anyway, I sat Simon down and had a chat with him. Obviously I explained it was not a good idea to be carrying on with a married woman.

He said there was nothing going on but it was obvious that something was. But what could we do?

Then he started to open up a bit more and told us he was protecting Val because her husband Michael Wood was knocking her about.

By then I was worried. I told him that was a matter for the police and that he should stay out of it.

But that upset Simon. He didn’t want to hear that he shouldn’t be seeing Val. Barbara and I became less popular with him for asking too many questions. The more we questioned him about her it seems the more we pushed him away.

He had become obsessed with her and the more he saw of her the more he changed from our caring boy into someone else.

He started being sullen and uncommunicative. He is the kind of lad who will tell you at the drop of hat he loves you. And he means it. That lovely side of his nature started to get buried under this more broody person who didn’t want to talk.

Then he started getting phone calls in the middle of the night from her and he would fly out of the house at all hours – 1am – 2am in the morning.

It wasn’t until later that we found out her husband was a security guard who worked nights. At the time we didn’t know what to think.

He never brought her home and with the benefit of hindsight it is easy to see why she would want to avoid us.

We had a bad feeling. “This is all going to end badly,” Barbara said to me, but we continued to hope for the best.

We just didn’t know what was going on other than this woman who we had never met was transforming our son into someone we didn’t recognise.

Then one night in April 2002 Simon didn’t come home at all.

I was at work so Michael and Barbara’s niece Susan went round to Val’s house.

She denied knowing Simon socially and said she was just a work colleague.

They didn’t like what they saw. Val, which was the only name all we knew her by, seemed aggressive and unhelpful.

But Barbara’s instincts kicked in again. “She lying,” she said and she called the police.

Sure enough Simon had been arrested after an incident in a pub in Ashford. It seems that Val had been there with one of her old boyfriends and Simon had got jealous. I think there was a bit of pushing and shoving but no more than that. There were never any charges. But Simon had top spend a night in the cells.

This just wasn’t Simon. He didn’t even drink, let alone raise his hands to someone.

After that we pleaded with him to stay away from her. She didn’t care about him, we told Simon. We had no idea at the time what her interest in him was – we only found that out when it was too late. We only know now that she was grooming him for murder.

But at the time he ignored us. He was besotted with her and would do anything for her.

She had him under some kind of spell. I even thought he was on drugs at one point.

He was unrecognisable as my son. He changed. He was arrogant and unfriendly the complete opposite of what he was before.

But when it came to her nothing was too much trouble. He would pick her up and take her shopping and drive her anywhere she wanted to go. He would buy he gifts but he became more and more uncommunicative with us.

I suppose it was because we wanted the relationship to end.

Even after she got him arrested he was still infatuated with her.

We knew by then they must have been sleeping together and for a young man that is a big thing. But she was much older and married and we couldn’t see what she would see in Simon.

The answer came on July 7th, 2002 when the police arrived at our house.

I was at work and they asked Barbara a lot of questions and searched the house.

Barbara told me later she knew when they walked up the drive that either Simon or Val or her husband was dead. She just knew.

The police told us Simon had cycled several miles from Ashford to nearby Challock where Michael Wood, who was 48 at the time, was working the night shift as a security guard.

They said it appeared Simon had confronted him outside his work place and stabbed him to death. He had been arrested after being spotted leaving the scene.

We could hardly take it in. We still can’t.

There were 28 wounds on Mr Wood’s body. I knew my son couldn’t be capable of something like that on his own. We told the police it was that woman who put him up to it.

All through her relationship with Simon she had been saying her husband was knocking her about. It all became clear to us. She had been grooming Simon for murder, taking advantage of his low IQ and good nature.

The police questioned her but somehow, even though the police suspected she had put Simon up to it, she wasn’t charged.

It was heartbreaking. This woman had brainwashed Simon. She had told him if he got rid of her husband they would be together for ever and Simon was gullible enough to believe it.

But Simon stood by her. He refused to implicate her. When we visited him in Belmarsh Prison in London while he was on remand we tried to get him to tell the whole story but he wouldn’t.

And he was having a tough time inside. On one visit he told us an old con had taken him under his wing and was looking after him.

“What’s his name?” we asked. It was Ronnie Biggs, Simon said. He said Ronnie was looking out for him and making things a bit more pleasant. But he had no idea who Ronnie Biggs was. I think that sums up my boy.

Simon pleaded guilty at Maidstone Crown Court in November 2003 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Barbara said it was the hardest day of her life. We both went to court and watched Simon get sentenced. Barbara  couldn’t believe it then and still can’t really believe it now. We know a life has been lost but Simon was put up to this. He was used.

My boy has been made out to be a callous killer and there is no way that is the truth.

It has ruined his life and torn us apart. Barbara has been off work since it happened and is on over 20 tablets for her nerves and anxiety.

We found out that Val got £49,000 from her husband’s life insurance policy. She never visited Simon. That is how much she cared. She had manipulated him into committing murder and then she disappeared back to the north east of England where she is from originally.

Then Simon started to realise what had happened. Despite us telling him all along he had never taken any notice of us. Then the penny dropped. She didn’t visit him, phone him. She had just disappeared. Far from them being together forever, as she had told him, she clearly never wanted to see my boy again and finally he did the right thing.

He told the police she had put him up to it and it gave the police the break they had been looking for. Simon said he was prepared to go into the witness box to give evidence against her.

The police tracked her down to Chester Le Street in County Durham where she had remarried. She was Mr Val Brown now and living with her new husband Ian.

The funny thing was that while this was going on we were getting our son back. He was in prison but during our visits we started to recognise him again. He was no longer under her spell.

She pleaded not guilty to murder but Simon spent two days in the witness box and his evidence convicted her.

In June 2006 she was jailed for life at Maidstone Crown Court for her part in the murder of her first husband.

The judge said Ian Wood, her husband of 20 years, who she had convinced Simon was beating her up was “a quiet good natured man”.

Mr Justice Fulford said: “It follows that you lied, in my view, when you told Simon Wright that your husband had attacked and treated you badly.

“I am sure these false allegations were advanced by you as part of your plan to persuade Simon Wright to kill Michael Wood.

“For reasons not entirely clear, you decided that the only possible escape for you from the marriage you no longer wanted was to kill your husband and you, effectively, set up Simon Wright as his killer.”

The judge also said it was clear she had tried to kill her husband herself using drugs and poison but it hadn’t work.

The judge recommended that Val Brown, who was 51 years old when she was convicted, should serve a minimum of 16 years.

Det Chief Insp Anne Brittain of Kent Police told us after the case: ”We always suspected Brown was involved in the murder, but at the time there was insufficient evidence to put before a court.”

Simon is now serving his sentence at Long Lartin Prison in Worcestershire but the judge still hasn’t set the tariff – that is how much of the life sentence he should serve.

We are hoping that they will be more lenient now that it has been shown he was manipulated and taken advantage of by this woman.

We have written to the Lord Chief Justice department pointing out how he was used and also how he helped bring Brown to justice.

Hopefully it will help get some time off his sentence.

He can never take back what he has done and he feels dreadful remorse but at least the world knows Simon is not a callous killer.

Simon and Val Brown’s dead husband are both her victims. I think she is pure evil.

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