How a tummy tuck jibe spiralled into sisters framing their own brother-in-law
Judge David Swinnerton has a way with words – and people in Liverpool know it.
Him telling a crook who burgled a hospital he was anything but ‘right-minded’ was on one local paper’s ‘top 10 Liverpool judges’ put-downs’.
But as he looked down from the bench at Helen and Michelle McPartland yesterday, he found himself, for once, a little lost for words.
‘It is sad to see you before the courts out of a family dispute which had been going on for some time and arises out of a will,’ he said, according to the Liverpool Echo.
‘There has been a lot of name-calling and unpleasantry between the two sides, some of it quite pathetic.
‘Some of it wants me to tell you to grow up. This has gone way beyond tit for tat.’
The months-long saga saw shameless lies and false criminal allegations thrown around in abandon after a comeback tore open old wounds in a family already rocked by a divisive family will.
But it all started with seven words. Graham and Alicia Potter, the sister of Helen and Michelle, were walking through Widnes town centre with their dog on August 6 last year, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
They were strolling towards the Widnes Market, food stalls flogging fresh groceries and flower bouquets, when they spotted Helen’s car.
Graham was alarmed, and had good reason to be – Michelle had bagged a non-molestation order against him, banning him from speaking or being near her.
Popping into the market along Bradley Way, leaving his wife and dog behind for a moment, Graham came out to see Michelle walking along the road.
He did a 180, the court heard, only to spot Michelle again.
Graham and Alicia, hurrying away from Michelle, walked past Helen and her car only for her to mutter, ‘the wrong sister died’, as they walked past.
‘Did you hear the tummy tuck brigade?’ Graham spat back in a jab against Michelle, who had undergone the procedure to firm up her abdomen, as he and his wife walked off.
These were words that Isabella Denn-White, defending both sisters, said both sisters had heard before.
She said Graham had followed her clients to a cemetery two days before the scuffle as they visited the grave of their late mother.
He shouted ‘tummy tuck brigade’ at them both, the sisters’ lawyer claimed.
Hearing these words again stung, the court heard. So a day after the market incident, Graham received a call that plunged his life into uncertainty.
While at a football match, Alicia phoned him to say he was wanted by the police.
Town police handcuffed him at the station suspicion of breaching a non-molestation order.
These suspicions, the court came to hear, came from the two sisters who twisted the truth to frame their brother-in-law. They claimed that Michelle had also been in the car as Graham walked by.
There was video footage, he was told, but it was ‘not available for him to see’. His solicitor managed to watch it, though, and had some strong advice: ‘Plead guilty.’
So standing before Warrington Magistrates’ Court on August 9, Graham did just that.
It was either an eight-week imprisonment suspended for a year and 80 hours of unpaid work or face having his case going to the crown court where more serious cases land.
Nearly a year since the verdict, it would be Helen and Michelle standing before the bench.
Both had admitted to perverting the course of justice.
‘They have held their hands up to this offence,’ Denn-White, the sisters’ lawyer, told the court. ‘They tell me they are extremely remorseful.’
‘The dispute in the family started when the sisters were left out of their mother’s will. The defendants accept their wrongdoing.
‘Tere has clearly been tit for tat going on between both sides of the family. The defendants describe being at breaking point.’
Helen, of New Bank Road, had been juggling her four children while being a full-time carer to one who is ‘profoundly death’ and lives with learning disabilities.
Michelle, of Lea Street, was a grandmother and herself a carer for Helen, who has ‘chronic’ kidney disease.
When Judge Swinnerton read the sentence – 10 months behind bars – all Helen could say was: ‘I’m going to prison.’
She wailed and cried as Michelle quietly wiped away a tear.
‘I do not know if Mr Potter has appealed his conviction, but he should,’ Judge Swinnerton said, adding that the suspended sentence has since loomed over him.
‘That should not be on his record.’
The ‘bare-faced lie’ from the sisters, he added, landed their brother-in-law in jail. Regardless of the anguish it caused their own sister, Alicia, they said nothing.
‘It is only because his wife would not let the matter drop that this eventually came to light, not thanks to you admitting it,’ the judge said.
‘You must have planned it, knowing full well it would result in a false conviction.’
Michelle and Helen were then escorted by the court bailiffs as Helen continued to wail, even after she was taken to a backroom away from view.
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