My bigamist conman dad has 14 kids… he duped my mum & 20 other women out of thousands after pretending to be a CIA agent
THE DAUGHTER of a bigamist has told how kids avoided her at school after her mum spoke out about marrying a conman.
Eilidh Thomson was just four when her mum broke the news her dad was going to jail.
Now 21, Eilidh has told Sun Online her side of a story which sent shockwaves through the lives of the dozens of women conned by William Allen Jordan.
She said: "I came home crying every day after school when I found out. But even when he was around it was an odd dynamic. He was away for months at a time. He'd spend time with us and go away again.
"He was great in those short stints. He was protective, everything the perfect dad would be, but he was pretending."
US-born Jordan, 58, posed as a CIA agent to deceive women into marrying him.
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SERIAL BIGAMIST
He is known to have duped at least 21 women, with 14 known children dotted around the world.
He told Mary Turner Thomson, 58, he was infertile when they met in 2000 on an online dating site.
Mary, who had been a single mum to Eilidh's nine-month-old half-sister Robyn, became pregnant just six months into the relationship.
They married in 2002, but Jordan would disappear for weeks at a time.
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Jordan, who married three women at once, routinely used the children to manipulate his victims into handing over thousands of pounds.
Mary gave him £200,000 after he'd told her terrorists were threatening to kidnap their children.
He persuaded her to sell their family home to pay the ransom.
She lived in fear for years, but in April 2006 received a call from 'The Other Mrs Jordan', his first wife Julie Cunningham.
He'd married Julie legally in 1992 and the couple had two children.
He'd go on to marry Mary a decade later, but also fathered two children with his first wife' nanny and started a relationship with another woman, Denise King, in May 2005.
His catalogue of lies fell apart when Blackpool-based victim Denise, who he'd also proposed to, reported him to the police over unauthorised transactions of £1,000 and £500 on her credit card.
After he was caught he was jailed for six years for bigamy and obtaining funds by deception.
By 2007 Mary had published two books and begun a career in public speaking, doing regular talks on the danger of psychopaths.
She used her kids' middle names to tell the story of her false relationship.
But the publicity would still come back on Eilidh.
SCHOOL TAUNTS
Kids at school avoided her, with even her best friend's mum telling her child to stay away.
Eilidh said: "I had a best friend whose mum stopped her being friends with me because our mum used our real middle names in the book and she didn't think that was right.
"People can be so judgemental and cruel. I've always been taught kindness. It wasn't a very considerate thing to do."
And the cruelty didn't end there, because Eilidh went on to be bullied in secondary school by cruel kids who compared her to her evil dad.
She said: "Kids are cruel. In school people made low blows which were hard to come to terms with it.
"Who my Dad was became something that could be used against me. But mum taught me there was no shame."
And Eilidh always supported her mum's decision to speak out.
She added: "Growing up people were so quick to blame my mum. But she did the best she could with the information she had. How could she have known.
"People go straight to the victim and the shame should be on the man. It's shocking so much blame is put on woman for being loving and trusting."
Eilidh grew up terrified she would end up becoming like her dad, who she compared to a Sims computer game player, picking up and dropping families as and when he pleased to entertain himself.
She said: "It's weird. He's a psychopath and you grow up thinking you've come from that. My whole life I worried I'd be like him. It's funny because my mum would say 'the fact you're worried means you're nothing like him'. Knowing you have that behind you makes it hard to move forward.
"None of his kids have shown any traits of being like him. We're all good people."
MOVING ON
Eilidh is now thriving in her second year of university, studying to become a filmmaker.
She added: "I won't let who my Dad was define me."
Although Eilidh was four when her Dad's network of women and children were discovered, she says she can remember him being "the perfect Dad".
She blames his attentive nature on his research on what a good Dad should do.
"It was an odd dynamic, he was away for months at a time. He'd spend time with us and go away again," she said.
"He'd be great in these short stints. I want to say I loved him and was a Daddies girl, and it was great, but I needed to think that way.
"Most kids need both parents and not having that a lot of the time was all we knew. He was protective, the perfect dad, but he was pretending to be that. He'd play games with us and read to us, but it was all a lie."
Eilidh is mortified by her reaction as a child to her mum explaining how her Dad would be going to jail.
She'd recently watched Cat In The Hat and mimicked a scene where the child said she hated her mum.
She added: "Mum was explaining that our Dad was a bad man and when bad people do bad things they go away.
"We were trying to understand and I was crying. I said I wish I'd had a different mother.
"It was awful. I said sorry straight away.
"As a child it was devastating but as an adult I know she did the best she could. She was so kind and didn't want to lie to us. I thought she did amazing."
Mary feared for her children after Jordan was freed from jail in 2014 - his location is currently unknown.
She put them in Taekwondo martial arts classes so they'd learn to stand up for themselves.
She also warned her daughters of the dangers of bad relationships.
Eilidh, a black belt, won a UK championship trophy and has only every had two wonderful relationships.
Both Mary and Eilidh's brother Zach, 18, have black belts.
Eilidh said: "Me and my sister both are in loving relationships. I've been with my partner for three years and she's been with her husband for six years. We've always had good relationships. We didn't get mum's taste in men.
"She always taught us our self worth is most important. If we don't respect ourselves and they don't respect us then it's not worth it. We've grown up with that mindset.
"I was a really nerdy teenager. I was in a relationship for two and a half years. And this is only my second. Boys have never been my priority."
Eilidh has met a few of her half-siblings, but says most want to forget their Dad.
She added: "It was lovely to meet them. They're all lovely people, not a single one of us has been destroyed by this experience. We're all super uplifted and happy."
An ITV documentary series, The Other Mrs Jordan – Catching the Ultimate Conman, is streaming now.
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Eilidh added: "I was so nervous to speak out, but I've had so many messages from people who say they feel better about what they went through.
"People don't understand abusive relationships so it's so important to talk about how this can happen."
