‘There is so much more we don’t know about these people’: Millionaire benefactor who let The Salt Path couple move into his farmhouse says he feels ‘gaslit’

The millionaire benefactor who let The Salt Path author Raynor Winn and her husband Moth move into his £1million farmhouse has broken his silence after claims she embezzled thousands from a former employer.

Bill Cole, 58, let the couple stay at his stunning Cornwall farm, Haye at St Veep, after being deeply moved by their story of homelessness and Moth’s health battle with corticobasal degeneration. 

But the benefactor claims he was left feeling ‘gaslit’ and betrayed by the pair after concerns they lied about Moth’s health and concealed the real reason for their homelessness. 

Mr Cole said he was surprised with an announcement by Moth in 2021 that he had been ‘told not to plan beyond Christmas’ due to his health, he told The Observer. 

But when Winn’s third book Landlines was published in September 2022, Mr Cole read how in the winter of 2021, a neurologist told Moth his brain was ‘normal’ – around the same time he told his new landlord the devastating news of his poor health. 

‘I was reading it on the train, said Mr Cole, ‘and I just went ”what the hell? It just makes no sense whatsoever”. 

‘I feel there is so much more we don’t know about these people.’ 

Inaccuracies in The Salt Path, including that the couple lost their home after Sally Walker – Winn’s real name – was accused in 2008 of embezzling tens of thousands of pounds from her employer. 

Bill Cole, 58, (pictured) let the couple stay at his stunning Cornwall farm, Haye at St Veep, after being deeply moved by their story of homelessness 

The millionaire benefactor who let The Salt Path author Raynor Winn and her husband Moth (pictured) move into his £1million farmhouse has broken his silence after claims she embezzled thousands from a former employer

The Winns with Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, the stars of the recent film adaptation. It has been claimed that the couple may have made millions from the book and movie

The revelations create doubt about a central part of Winn’s memoir – that the family were made homeless through no fault of their own. 

Mr Cole had been touched by the plight of the couple and wanted to ensure they wouldn’t face homelessness again. 

‘I felt I was being gaslit,’ he said. 

This week, Winn admitted she has ‘deep regret’ over mistakes made that led to allegations she embezzled from a former employer.

In a bombshell statement, the best-selling writer claimed she was working during a ‘pressured time’ when errors were being made across the business.

Winn, however, denied allegations the financial dispute with ex-boss Martin Hemmings had any relation to the story told in The Salt Path.   

She claimed the ‘bad investment’ with a lifetime friend that prompted the couple to lose their home related to an entirely separate legal case.

It follows days of backlash against Winn’s 2018 memoir – which has been accused of not being as ‘unflinchingly honest’ as initially billed.

Raynor Winn at home in Cornwall. She has become a huge success since her book’s release, including two more books

Nevertheless Winn has maintained the account given The Salt Path is accurate and described the allegations against her as ‘grotesquely unfair’ and ‘misleading’.

The author, who has sold more than two million copies of her book, also said this week she had been left ‘devastated’ by accusations her husband’s illness was fabricated.

Winn said: ‘The dispute with Martin Hemmings, referred to in the Observer by his wife, is not the court case in The Salt Path.

‘Nor did it result in us losing our home. Mr Hemmings is not Cooper. Mrs Hemmings is not in the book, nor is she a relative of someone who is.

‘I worked for Martin Hemmings in the years before the economic crash of 2008. For me it was a pressured time.

‘It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.’