Rhian Brown’s mum Sharon had trusted someone from her close-knit community to help her. But Rhian, 35, never imagined there would be deadly consequences…
My little boy and I ran down our road and around the corner, coming to a stop outside a front door. “Can I knock, please?” Kevaughn said. “Go on then, love,” I replied. He tapped and the door opened and there stood my mum Sharon with her arms open wide. Kevaughn leapt into them, and she covered him in kisses.
Mum and Kevaughn, then three, adored each other. I never had to worry about childcare because Mum was always there to support me – just as she’d done all my life. My parents had split up when I was small and, although I was close to my dad, Devon, Mum and I were inseparable, and she was my role model. She was a Jehovah’s Witness and had a strong faith and values, which she instilled in me.
Growing up, our congregation near our home in Dudley, West Midlands, didn’t have many young people, so Mum took me all over the country so I could make friends. Things changed, though, when I met my partner and got pregnant at 29.
Being unmarried and living together was against the rules of the religion, so I stopped being a practising Witness and that changed the dynamic between me and Mum. She wouldn’t always confide in me, especially when it came to the religious community.
But when Kevaughn was born, we saw each other more often. “He’s brought light and sunshine into my life,” Mum would tell me. Sadly, when Kevaughn was eight months old, we lost Dad to Covid. We were heartbroken and leant on each other to get through. Dad had been a builder and he’d always said he’d help Mum add an extension to her house, which she wanted. But she hadn’t been able to afford it.
A year after Dad died, however, she found someone to do the work for her on a single storey extension to her kitchen, which would give her an extra bathroom. “It will only take six to eight weeks,” she said. She hired a man called Peter Norgrove, a fellow Witness, after a mutual friend at their congregation introduced him.
When I popped round, I saw him working, but didn’t really pay much attention. However, when I continued seeing him at Mum’s months later, I felt concerned. “Why is he still here?” I asked.
The extension was a long way from being finished, and when my partner visited, he noticed the work was shoddy. “You’ve got to get rid of him, Mum,” I said. But she said the work had progressed too far for her to let him go. She didn’t say as much, but I felt she was also reluctant to fire him because he was part of the Witness community.
A year passed and the building work dragged on. Then Mum was made redundant from her job
