This article is more than 10 years old
French aristocrat tells how conman lured her to
Oxford and stole family fortune
Christine de Védrines's memoir sheds light on the
incredible story of a noble French family conned by 'hypnotic' trickster
Kim
Willsher in Bordeaux
Sat 10 Aug
2013 13.03 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/french-aristocrat-conman-oxford-lost-fortune
If
Christine de Védrines's privileged life had gone to plan, she would now be
sitting in a vast turreted ancestral chateau surrounded by sunflowers in a
picturesque corner of south-west France. Instead, after a bizarre interlude in
a semi-detached house in Oxford, this elegant, unmistakably aristocratic woman
is living with her husband, Charles-Henri, heir to the family seat, and three
grownup children in a claustrophobic council flat on the outskirts of Bordeaux.
They are,
she says in her first interview since publishing a memoir of one of the most
extraordinary cons ever perpetrated, financially "ruined". Robbed of
their fortune and heritage by a machiavellian fraudster. "Now we have
nothing," she says as a statement of fact, devoid of self-pity.
For more
than a decade now, the Védrines have been at the centre of an incredible story
described as a mix of Harry Potter, Dan Brown, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.
Christine de Védrines has decided to give her own version in a book entitled
Nous n'étions pas armés (We weren't armed), detailing their ordeal.
Charles-Henri, 65, and their three children, Guillaume, 35, Amaury, 32, and
Diane, 27, have each contributed their side of the incredible tale. The family
have written the book, she says, partly as a cathartic act, partly as a
warning.
Many still
find it hard to believe that 11 wealthy, cultured and intelligent members of a
noble Protestant family could have been brainwashed for nearly a decade by a
confidence trickster who fleeced them of nearly €5m (£4.3m). Between 1999 and
2009, Thierry Tilly plunged them into collective paranoia, convinced that only
he could save them from a sinister masonic plot.
It was
Charles-Henri's older sister Ghislaine, director of a Paris secretarial
college, who employed Tilly as her deputy, who introduced the conman into the
family. At first the Védrines were impressed by his claims of contacts in high
places – Tilly claimed to be a descendant of the Habsburgs and the son of an
Olympic ice-skater – and the fraudster's money-making schemes. Soon, however,
Tilly had convinced them he was a secret agent and that their lives were in
danger and they were being bugged, followed and spied on by an evil network
that included other family members.
Incredible
as it seemed, one by one they fell under his spell, including family matriarch
Guillemette, aged 88; an older brother, Philippe, a retired Shell Oil
executive; and Charles-Henri, a successful and popular obstetrician. It was, as
one family member, banished after questioning Tilly's motives, said, as if he
had "opened their heads and taken out their brains".
"As
his profession and character demands, he [Charles-Henri] is prudent and
pragmatic," Christine writes, but despite this her husband still
"gave all his confidence … thanks to the chameleon-like talent of Thierry
Tilly".
Believing
itself endangered, the family was soon barricading itself behind the closed
shutters of the ancestral home, Chateau Martel, in the pretty medieval village
of Monflanquin in the Lot-et-Garonne, cutting off contact with the outside
world.
Christine
de Védrines, 62, admits the convoluted saga stretches credibility. "If
someone told me this story, I would have difficulty believing it," she
told the Observer. "But it happened. It's true. We were all
manipulated."
Tilly is
currently serving 10 years in jail for the kidnap, brutal treatment, extortion
and abuse of weakness of the Védrines family. The Védrines' jewels, paintings
and several properties, however, have all gone, and their money, supposedly
invested by Tilly, has disappeared into the offshore ether.
"I
heard someone on the radio talking about us and saying we were cultured,
educated, intelligent and this should have armed us against Tilly,"
Christine told the Observer last week. "But it didn't. We were simply not
armed to deal with someone who lied on such an extraordinary scale. Maybe we
were naive, but we were not used to another human being lying to us, tricking
us. We did not expect it. Thierry Tilly was a bad person, a predator, a
vampire. And we were like puppets, unable to stop him. He was very clever. It
was almost as if we were hypnotised."
Tilly
uprooted the family to the UK, telling them their lives were at risk in France,
then beat, threatened and humiliated Christine to obtain the "key" to
a non-existent family fortune he claimed she possessed, turning her own
children against her.
The spell
was only broken in March 2009, when Christine fled back to France and went to
the police. Tilly was arrested in Switzerland shortly afterwards, but such was
his power over the family it was six months before her husband and children
were persuaded to return with the help of a lawyer specialising in cults,
Daniel Picotin.
"People
ask how he could have manipulated all 11 of us, but it didn't help being so
many. It meant every time someone expressed a doubt about him, someone else
would justify what he was doing. We were all manipulated," said Christine.
Charles-Henri,
who inherited Château Martel, said he had been devastated to discover Tilly had
tricked him into signing papers to sell the property, sealing the couple's
ruin. He is contesting the sale. "When the lawyer told me I almost fell
off my chair. I thought I was signing for a loan. I would never have knowingly
sold Martel. I wasn't in my right mind, but I wouldn't have agreed to sell my
family home – my, and my children's, heritage. I will fight to my dying day to
get it back."
Today the
family is trying to rebuild some kind of normal life. Charles-Henri has
returned to work as a doctor to feed the family, Diane is studying chemistry,
Guillaume has his own insurance business and Amaury has just finished a
business degree. Christine remains resolutely upbeat. What she misses most, she
said, is not the chateau or her engagement ring, taken by Tilly, but the poems
and notes to her late parents, the Mother's Day cards from her children.
"They were in a suitcase taken to Oxford. I haven't a clue what Tilly did
with them," she said. "They're not worth anything, but they were my
memories."
She said
her book, which she hopes will be translated into English, is an attempt to
establish "the truth" of the family's bizarre ordeal, and a warning
to others of the "extraordinary things that can happen to an ordinary
family. For 10 years we lived with Thierry Tilly's lies. I wanted to leave a
record of the truth."
This article was amended on 12 August 2013.
The original said that Monflanquin in the Lot-et-Garonne is in south-east
France. It is in the south-west.
We Were Not Armed: The family whose lives were stolen
by a conman
by Christine de Védrines (Author)
This is the
story of how a family can be destroyed by a chain of events that begin when one
member puts her trust in a conman. At the beginning of the 21st century, the de
Védrines were an ancient aristocratic Bordeaux family, educated and socially
established. From the outside they had everything they could have wished for –
wealth, love, friends, education and family. But the very closeness and trust
they had with each other ended up splitting them apart. Exploiting a mix of
family pride, historic roots, and personal identity, an outsider – a criminal
called Thierry Tilly – stripped the family over ten years of their houses,
their money and their personal dignity. It took the courage of Christine de
Védrines to break away from Tilly’s iron grip. Her story of how she did that is
simply told but moving and sometimes almost unbearable.
L'affaire des reclus de Monflanquin est le nom donné par la
presse à une affaire d'emprise mentale dont a été victime une famille de
notable bordelais pendant près de dix ans.
Un escroc, Thierry Tilly, manipule onze membres de la
famille Védrines, leur faisant croire qu'ils sont menacés par un complot. De
2000 à 2009, Tilly extorque près de 4,5 millions d'euros au groupe, retranché
dans le château familial de Monflanquin dans le Lot-et-Garonne, puis dans une
autre propriété familiale et enfin à Oxford. Christine de Védrines échappe à
son emprise en mars 2009 et porte plainte. Tilly est condamné en 2013 à dix ans
de prison.
C'est Ghislaine qui en 1997 fait la connaissance de Thierry
Tilly alors qu'elle cherche une entreprise de nettoyage industriel pour l'école
qu'elle dirige à Paris. Elle est intellectuellement séduite par cet homme, qui
gagne rapidement sa confiance. Tilly devient son bras droit, et courant 1999
elle le présente à ses frères, à sa mère. Il écoute leurs confidences, les
conseille dans leurs affaires en se prétendant gestionnaire de patrimoine, joue
sur les inimitiés familiales et les rivalités successorales.
Tilly se
prétend agent secret, persuade les Védrines qu'ils sont victimes d'un complot,
que les pédophiles, les francs-maçons, les Rose-Croix, le fisc les menacent. En
septembre 2001, il convainc onze personnes du groupe de se retrancher pour leur
sécurité dans leur château familial à Monflanquin ; ceux qui sont sceptiques,
comme Jean Marchand, sont exclus par leurs proches, selon un scénario précis
rédigé par Tilly. Dans le
petit village, le groupe de retranchés ne passe pas inaperçu, et coupe les
ponts avec ses relations : un voisin s'entend accuser de « participer à des
messes noires et à des partouzes », une autre se fait traiter de « salope ».
Depuis le
printemps 2001, Tilly n'apparaît même plus, se contentant de donner ses ordres
à distance : il dresse les uns contre les autres, les force à se surveiller ou
se punir mutuellement.
Comme ils ne
paient plus leurs impôts, l'administration fiscale saisit les meubles de la
propriété ; Tilly les convainc alors de
lui céder tous leurs biens, en mai 2004. À l'extérieur, Jean Marchand tente
d'alerter les autorités sur la situation de ses proches, en vain. En février
2008, Philippe de Védrines et Brigitte Loriot-Martin sortent du groupe ; Tilly
oblige les neuf parents restant à déménager à Oxford, où il vit : les Védrines
sont tombés dans le dénuement, l'ancien obstétricien doit travailler comme
jardinier, son épouse Christine est vendeuse chez un traiteur ; leurs salaires
alimentent le compte de Tilly.
À Christine de Védrines, qui commence à avoir des doutes grâce à l'aide de son employeur, Tilly fait infliger des « supplices physiques d'une rare cruauté » : elle est attachée sur un tabouret pendant deux semaines et privée de sommeil par ses parents que Tilly a persuadés qu'elle leur cacherait un trésor, « confié par les rois de France aux Védrines »5. En mars 2009, Christine de Védrines est exfiltrée. Son récit des sévices endurés enclenche la machine judiciaire. En octobre, Tilly est interpellé en Suisse et incarcéré à la prison de Gradignan. Fin novembre, une opération est montée en Angleterre par Me Daniel Picotin, l'avocat bordelais de Jean Marchand pour libérer le reste de la famille Védrines4. En juin 2010 Jacques Gonzalez est arrêté : ce personnage effacé, que Tilly présentait comme « le cousin du roi d’Espagne Juan Carlos » et comme le dirigeant d'un organisme
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