Now Nicole that is an overstatement on your part. That would be like me accusing you of intensely disliking Heather Mills and harboring ill thoughts towards her.
I rejoice at Paul escaping harm but did not express an opinion on Mob Princess Nancy having done so. In no way is that "wishing" for harm on her. But as Stella is said to have gleefully pointed out when her Dad and Nancy started dating, Nancy is okay because she has "her own money" so if something did happen to her then Paul is not out the dough of burying her. The Hatters are quite concerned about Paul's money as we saw in "The Divorce."
Oh, c'mon. You know full well what the implication of your statement was. I DO intensely dislike Mills but don't wish her ill. The two aren't necessarily the same thing, and I don't feel the need to bring up said dislike whenever an opportunity arises.
'As Stella is said....' Maybe you need to stop repeating lines from tabloids as if they're the truth. And it IS a good thing, that she has her own money. Put them on a more level footing from the beginning, to be honest.
The 'Hatters' were more worried about his wellbeing, I suspect, than his cash. The guy is drowning is rejection and melancholy on Chaos and Creation, and even in interviews he did with her, I felt so awkward for him. Look, I understand being thankful that she helped him out at a really tough period in his life, and being thankful for Beatrice, but that doesn't mean I have to like her. I have LOTS of reasons not to but, if I were you, I would read the divorce judgment that was published. I suspect your opinions would be revised a little bit. There are other things too...
- her 'glamour shots' which were done for an 'educational book' so she claimed eventually, are just soft porn... (google - also remember her 'dalliances' with rich Arabs which she has categorically denied - um, wrong)
- she was forced to settle out of court when she lied about being kidnapped as a child by the local paedophile, when all the time it had happened to a schoolfriend, and Mills tried to pass off the story as her own:
www.people.co.uk/news/tm_headline=wrecked-forgiven-by-mucca%26method=full%26objectid=20360226%26siteid=93463-name_page.html- Mature attitude to news Paul might be dating again: Mills declared: "I think he has three different girlfriends. I wish all the girls the best of luck. Better them than me."
- Lied about how much of her Dancing with the Stars fee was given to charity:
www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/20/heather-mills-charitable-_n_92527.html?- "Certain journalists have written horrible things, and then they've got cancer, or they've had a tumour, or they've died. And it's terrible for them, but they've done really evil things. I truly believe things come back round." - Yeah, that sounds perfectly reasonable...
- In her pre-Macca days she did attempt to pass herself off as a journalist from the The Independant who is also called Heather Mills:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411988/Why-Heather-Mills-pretended-me.html- FED-UP police have warned Heather Mills to stop wasting their time after she made four emergency calls in 24 hours:
www.digitalspy.com.au/showbiz/news/a43975/senior-cop-criticises-heather-mills.html-
Heather says her fee from Dancing On Ice will go to her latest cause, the Hunts Point Alliance for Children in New York's South Bronx. It was to this charity that Heather, two years ago, promised her biggest - and to date, only - major public charity donation (although she claims '99 per cent' of her donations are anonymous). Heather at the National Television Awards in London earlier this month. She offered to provide $1million of vegan food to the charity which works in America's most poverty stricken urban ghetto. Mills became involved with the New York community group when she befriended its founder Maryann Hedaa at a charity function. When she announced the donation, she was given an honorary congressional award. But the charity is still waiting for much of its money. 'So far, I would say we have been given about $150,000 in cash and another $200,000 of food products,' says Maryann. 'I would say we have been given about a fifth of the money so far.'
- Former publicist Michele Elyzabeth, who looked after her U.S. interests, now claims Heather still owes her money and says: 'She is a calculating person - not the person she portrays. She lied to everyone.'
- Former hairdresser David Paul is even more excoriating. He started working with her in 2005 and, after she told him she was waiting for Sir Paul to give her a bigger income, David did her hair for free on the understanding that she would pay him when she could. But during the divorce proceedings it emerged she received £350,000 a year from Sir Paul. Plus, he paid all her bills. David was shocked, as he tells me: 'I was seduced by her charm. But she was lying to me. I was shocked when I discovered how much money she had coming in when she met me. She hardly paid me anything. 'What was disturbing to me was that she was pleading poverty at a time when my brother was dying of Aids - and she still lied to my face about not having any money. She has no conscience.'
- 'I have had nothing but very warm support from the public throughout all this. No one has ever said anything nasty to me,not once,' says Heather, who has homes in America, Hove and the Sussex countryside. 'Once when I was with Beatrice in a playground in Brighton, a young woman threw her arms around me in tears, telling me I was an inspiration for all women.' Hang on, didn't Heather argue in court that her acrimonious separation from Sir Paul in 2006 had turned her into a figure of hate in Britain as the public apparently rallied to support the former Beatle? Indeed, she brandished hate mail in court and claimed she needed Sir Paul to pay for 24-hour protection. 'I have the same security arrangements as everyone else,' she says smoothly now. Subject closed.
- Stapely (Mills' stepfather) disputed Mills' statement that her mother had nearly lost a leg in a car crash, after Mills said, "her leg was only hanging on by a tiny flap of skin and flesh ... miraculously the surgeons managed to insert a metal plate and reattach it". Stapely said that Mills' mother had suffered a leg injury after a car crash, but recovered and was "a keen tennis player" and that Mills, "is simply a very confused woman for whom reality and fantasy have become blurred"
- "Which brings us back to the project that attracted Sir Paul's attention in the first place: the Heather Mills Health Trust. A charity, it turns out, that didn't exist -- at least as far as the Charity Commission for England and Wales was concerned... The returns show that the trust spent nearly a quarter of its income on support costs and management, and Mills took £10,000 as repayment for an unexplained loan she'd given the charity." -
nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/celebritycity/6301/- Her own publicist Anya Noakes: "I'm not pretending that she's never exaggerated stories. But I don't think it's ever been done with malicious intent or anything. What I find quite funny about it all is that when she was a little girl, because of all the horrible things that happened in her childhood, she lived in this slight fantasy world"
- She's used the media for her own ends in the past and while she's getting good press, she doesn't mind them. When it all goes wrong she's out there screaming for their blood. She can't have it both ways.
- You honestly believe THIS is true?! She claims PM:
"Subjected her to four violent attacks, including one in which he stabbed her in the arm with a broken wine glass. Continued to use illegal drugs and drink excessively, despite promises made before they married. Hurled abuse at his wife, calling her an 'ungrateful bitch'. Tried to prevent her breastfeeding, saying: 'They are my breasts.' Made her cancel a crucial operation because it interfered with his holiday plans. Objected 'vociferously' when she asked to buy an antique bedpan to save her crawling to the toilet at night."
HE was the one who started divorce proceeding whilst she banged on about how blissful their marriage was... And after these claims she says that she'll always love Paul, wouldn't attack his name, and also lets him have joint custody of Bea (even though he's a violent man, Heather?!) -
forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11179906&postcount=161-
msnbc.msn.com/id/15353119/site/todayshow/ns/today-entertainment/t/who-heather-mills- Alleged Paul also beat up Linda - REALLY?! That's not crossing a line?!
- Divorce papers held by her lawyers and leaked to the media earlier this week had claimed that her husband was abusive and violent, forcing her to cook evening meals unassisted and making her stay in bed in the morning until he was ready to rise. But her own book, Life Balance, painted a picture of marital harmony in which she set the alarm early to allow for some "personal space before the day begins". And in a television interview the former model spoke of an agreement with Sir Paul that meant he brought her breakfast in bed while she prepared dinner. In the divorce document, Lady McCartney also complains that she was "expected to prepare two dinners every night" one for their daughter, Beatrice, and one for Sir Paul. She adds that he did not like her "to be assisted in the preparation of his meal" despite her disability, the loss of a leg. However, in an interview with Michael Parkinson in 2003, Lady McCartney praised her husband for "bringing me breakfast in bed every morning, no matter how he feels. And I do the dinner, so we've got that agreement. It's thoughtfulness".
- On a video on SKY she looked well, happy and talked about how random suppportive people were hugging her in the street during the separation. A few weeks prior she was whining about how she feared for her life in case a Beatle fan attacked her and that she needed security for her and her daughter.
- Miss Mills, 38, says she wants to become "a spokeswoman for battered women", by becoming the face of domestic abuse charity Refuge - or Shelter, which helps the homeless, including victims of domestic abuse.
- Some grandoise claims: "I'm responsible for nine countries"
- Doesn't stop boasting! "I have been helping and counselling the bomb amputee victims but I don't want any publicity or boasting about it"
- broke promise to a disabled woman:
www.digitalspy.com.au/showbiz/news/a95664/mills-broke-promise-to-disabled-mother.html- complains about press intrusion etc on the very day she does more then FIVE interviews with them, complaining and slandering Paul: "I'm not a publicity seeker... I haven't gone round promoting things to finance my own pockets."
- On EXTRA she said: "Every single week Stella tried to break up our marriage. She was so jealous. Stella wasn't interested in her dad's happiness. I can't protect her any longer. She's done evil, evil things." Mills also claimed to have damaging evidence about a person, whose identity she did not disclose, stored in a safe. "I'm protecting that party because I care about that party. But if it's going to carry on, then I'm going to have to tell all the truth," she said.
- "I would rather someone come up and chop off all my limbs than go through what I went through," she said. She added: "It's a fact because if your limbs are chopped off you ... get another limb and there's light at the end of the tunnel. When you're vilified for doing nothing but falling in love with an icon ... I'd rather have all of my limbs cut off that's the God's honest truth."
- After divorce she said: she had not spoken about the split until now because she was concerned for the welfare of the couple's three-year-old daughter Beatrice. THIS was said after she made the allegations already spoken about...
-
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-561161/Scheming-Heather-told-Sir-Paul-Marry-says-friend-10-000-night-ex-prostitute.html-
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-405387/I-tarred-Heathered-says-Heathers-husband.html- She described the divorce case as a "David versus Goliath" battle, where she was "fighting the Establishment". She went on to boast about pouring water over the head of Macca's lawyer Fiona Shackleton at the end of the High Court case. Mills claimed that she had done it to "cleanse and baptise" her. Speaking from Las Vegas, where she is a judge in the Miss USA beauty contest, she said: "Mrs Shackleton said something under her breath so I cleansed and baptised her. I thought she looked fantastic. I thought it did her the world of good and now I've been offered lots of jobs for creating looks for women of her age, with these kind of hairdos. So I have no regrets."
- Mills said that she had once been asked to stand for parliament by the three main political parties, and had been offered a peerage in 2001 (to become Baroness Mills) by the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and a certain "Lord Macdonald". An ITV documentary (McCartney vs McCartney: The Ex Files) interviewed three Lord Macdonalds, but not one of them could remember ever meeting Mills. British journalist Jasper Gerard, to whom Mills made the claims, also says she told him that she had cancelled a meeting with Bill Clinton in case her endorsement affected a US election outcome.
- "I've never ever spoken badly about my husband... I never will, he's the father of my child. But there are huge powers, I don't have that powerful system that he has. There are huge powers that create these things for reasons of their own. [There] was a huge agenda behind trying to destroy me and knock me down... but I'll never lower myself to that level to even get involved and comment on it. I have a daughter to protect": so she protects her daughter and speaks well of her husband by accusing him of trying to destroy her, giving her no money and being a wifebeater?!
- Heather recounts running away from home shortly before her 14th birthday, spending months sleeping in a cardboard box under railway arches near Waterloo Bridge, surrounded by drug addicts and prostitutes. "As lodgings, the arches weren't exactly inviting," she writes in her autobiography. "They were dark and damp and the ground was littered with broken glass. My neighbours came from all sorts of backgrounds. Some had had nervous breakdowns," she writes. Charles Stapley, Heather's step-father, is bemused by this. Heather and her sister, Fiona, moved to Clapham, South London, to live with him and their mother in 1983, when Heather was 15. "She always had a room at my house with her sister," says Mr Stapley, "and I don't ever recall hearing that she'd slept rough at Waterloo Station. Heather is somewhat confused about a number of things from her youth." Records reportedly show she was enrolled at school at the time.
- The same woman who claims never to have heard of the Beatles when she met Paul McCartney is the same woman who said in court that EVERYONE has known for the past 15 years that Paul McCartney is worth £800 million.
- "Beatrice only gets £35,000 a year - so obviously she's meant to travel B class while her father travels A class, but obviously I will pay for that."
- Was asked 'Do you think Sir Paul is cruel?' and replied 'I can't say that for the sake of my daughter. My sister does.'
- "He likes her to fly five times a year on holiday," Mills said of McCartney. "It's £17,000 for two people return (round-trip) first class, so that's obviously not meant to happen for her anymore. It's very sad."
- On GMTV she said "how do you know I want ANY money?" and said she wasn't a golddigger. According to the courts, she asked for 125 million quid.
- Mills stated that she was once awarded the Outstanding Young Person of the Year award by the British Chambers of Commerce, but did not challenge newspapers after they discovered there was no such award
_
Let me give you a few quotes from the JUDGE and some FACTS from the released divorce papers (which she didn't want released to 'protect' Bea...)
SHE CLAIMED:
The wife’s case cannot be so succinctly summarised. By the time of the parties’ first meeting in May of 1999 the wife says that she was wealthy and independent with, as she told me in evidence, properties and cash totalling between £2m and £3m. She earned her living as a TV presenter, a model and public speaker. She began to cohabit with the husband from March 2000 which led seamlessly into marriage and thus the relationship lasted 6 years. This is denied by the husband. The wife says that the husband’s attitude towards her career was one of constriction such that the opportunities for the development of her career fell away during their relationship. He dictated what she could or could not do. She thus seeks compensation for the loss of her career opportunity in that during their cohabitation and subsequent marriage she forewent a lucrative and successful career. She seeks an award commensurate with being the wife of, and the mother of the child of, an icon. She places great weight on the contributions she says she has made to counselling the husband’s children by his former marriage and to the husband’s professional career. She asserts that his assets are worth in excess of £800m and that she is entitled to share in the “marital acquest”. Finally, she asserts that throughout their marriage and after their separation the husband behaved in such a way that it would be inequitable to disregard and that his conduct should be reflected in the award.
JUDGE SAID:
Many of the issues of fact involve a head on conflict between the evidence of the wife and the husband, in which I shall also have to examine the relevant and important documents. It is therefore appropriate that I should briefly say something at this stage about the evidence of each of the parties.
The husband’s evidence was, in my judgment, balanced. He expressed himself moderately though at times with justifiable irritation, if not anger. He was consistent, accurate and honest.
But I regret to have to say I cannot say the same about the wife’s evidence. Having watched and listened to her give evidence, having studied the documents, and having given in her favour every allowance for the enormous strain she must have been under (and in conducting her own case) I am driven to the conclusion that
much of her evidence, both written and oral, was not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid. Overall she was a less than impressive witness.
I have to say
I cannot accept the wife’s case that she was wealthy and independent by the time she met the husband in the middle of 1999. Her problem stems from the
lack of any documentary evidence to support her case as to the level of her earnings. I do not doubt her commitment to charitable causes. During her cross-examination she asserted for the first time that in addition to property assets she had £2m-£3m in the bank. No mention of such assets was made in her affidavit. There is no documentary evidence to support that assertion. During the hearing she was asked repeatedly to produce bank statements, which she said she thought she had in Brighton, to verify this claim. No bank statements were ever produced.
The wife’s riposte is that much of her earnings, which are not included in the tax returns, were sent direct to charities of her nomination. In her evidence she told me that as much as 80% or 90% of her earnings went direct to charities. However, the wife had to accept in her cross-examination that
there was no documentary evidence, for example letters from the relevant charities, that her fees were sent direct to charities... Furthermore, her assertion that she gave away to charity 80% to 90% of her earned income is inconsistent with having £2m-£3m in the bank in 1999.
The wife accepted that had she had £2m to £3m in the bank in 1999 she is most likely to have put such a sum into an account earning interest. But the tax returns do not disclose any bank interest earned or only very small sums which are not consistent with holding £2m-£3m in a bank or banks. Moreover
her tax returns disclose no charitable giving at all.I find that the wife’s case as to her wealth in 1999 to be
wholly exaggerated.- It is not without significance that until the husband married the wife he wore the wedding ring given to him by Linda. Upon being married to the wife he removed it and it was replaced by a ring given to him by the wife. The wife for her part must have felt rather swept off her feet by a man as famous as the husband. I think this may well have warped her perception
leading her to indulge in make-belief. The objective facts simply do not support her case.- Furthermore, it is to be noted that, as I have said, in May 2001 the husband lent the wife £800,000 to buy Angel’s Rest. A loan of £800,000 to the wife in May 2001
does not support the concept of a gift to the wife of a property in March 2001 worth about $4m.
SHE SAID:
Paul repeatedly told me that he would make sure that I was financially secure, should my money run out. My income stream and my savings did start to run out drastically. I was no longer able to support my standard of living as I had substantially reduced my workload in order to spend time with Paul and to support him and his children emotionally. My ability to earn the same level of income I had been earning diminished once my relationship with Paul became serious. Countless lucrative business opportunities were made to me once Paul and I married. Sadly, Paul advised against 99% of all of them. He stated that they were only interested in me because of his name and that I should just stick to charity work and he would take car of me. When I was asked to design clothes, create a food line, write books, make a video, write music or do photography, Paul would almost always state something like “Oh no you can’t do that, Stella does that or Mary does that or Heather (his adopted daughter) used to do that or Linda did that.” even though I had been involved with fashion and modelling for years. If I had been free to pursue my TV career, especially in the US, then I believe, and have been told by other professionals, I would have made millions. Paul would not allow me to work in the US. For example he would not allow me to work on the Larry King show. He would tell me “we won’t be living there and you would be a bad mother if you worked.” Therefore, Paul made it impossible for me to pursue a career in the U.S. Shortly after telling me I would be a “bad mother” if I worked, Paul booked a 3 month US tour dragging Beatrice and me around America. If we had been able to base ourselves in one place I would have been able to accept the hosting of some of the Larry King shows or to do something to further my career. I believe now that Paul’s reason for refusing to support me in doing something career wise was his fear of losing my undivided attention. He also needed to be the centre of attention at all times.”
JUDGE SAID:
The wife was therefore constrained to accept that, if the overall period 1999 to 2006 is considered solely looking at her tax returns, her income improved during the relationship with the husband.
In 2002 the wife published a book “A Single Step” in which at page 313 is a reference to 2001 when she wrote of her charity and public speaking work expanding “to such an extent that it has left little time for anything else”. A further illustration of the expansion rather than contraction of her career is her appearances on the Larry King Show. The wife accepted in her cross-examination that prior to her relationship with the husband she had never appeared on his show.
The husband’s evidence to me was that he had never said that the wife was/would be a bad mother. He told me that she has always been a good mother. The wife told him she had been offered a more permanent job co-hosting the Larry King Show. The husband was sceptical because the wife had received bad reviews for her interview of Paul Newman. However he agreed to go to the US for 3 months to see how things went. He says he believed he owed it to the wife as she had accompanied him on his last US tour. But they were both of the same mind that they, for Beatrice’s sake, did not wish to relocate to Los Angeles. Thereafter the wife did not mention the subject again. The wife in her cross-examination did not accept this account.
I am prepared to assume in the wife’s favour that Larry King did float the idea of the wife doing further interviews on his show. But I doubt it got any further than that.
I do not accept the wife’s evidence that she was actually offered a contract. The idea was discussed between the wife and the husband. Beatrice was then about 6 months old. This was the wife’s first and only child. Her birth must have brought about a change in the outlook of the wife and husband, for the welfare of Beatrice to both of them was, and still is, of the very greatest importance. I think the husband was, very understandably, reluctant about what would have been a relocation to Los Angeles and the likelihood is that he proposed a sort of temporary solution. Thereafter the wife, having no doubt considered it all carefully with Beatrice’s welfare in mind, dropped the subject. There are other examples, in my judgment, which, contrary to the wife’s case, show that the husband was supportive of, or furthered, the wife’s career. In 2005, at a time when the marriage may have been faltering, the wife took part in a mini tour in the USA of public speaking with Smart Talk Women’s Lecture Series. Mr Benia, the owner or controlling influence in that organisation, speaks in his statement of 24 November 2006 (which was admitted into evidence on behalf of the wife unchallenged) of the wife’s tour being an “outstanding success”. However Smart Talk was unable to offer the wife more dates for the 2006 season as Mr Benia found that the wife “was unable to commit in advance to future Smart Talk dates”. Mr Benia says that the wife lost a lot of business not just with his, but other, organisations, basically because she was not accessible. He could not get a commitment from the wife for dates nor speedy responses he needed.
The wife blames the husband for her failure to commit. He was restrictive and discouraged her. The husband’s evidence is that the wife’s unreliability was not caused by him. He was unable to explain why the wife did not commit herself when offered dates by Mr Benia. The husband, in my judgment, gave compelling evidence that no-one tells the wife what to do. This accords with his written evidence that the wife is very strong willed. Indeed watching the wife give evidence and present her case she came across to me as strong willed and very determined. I have no doubt that had the wife really wanted to contract for dates through Mr Benia she would have done it and the husband would not have stood in her way.
The evidence in relation to McDonald’s illustrates much the same story as Smart Talk. The wife and representatives from McDonald’s met in late November 2005 and early 2006 to discuss McDonald’s selling vegetarian dishes. McDonald’s approached her because of her association with “select animal welfare organisations” (according to the November 2006 statement of Michael Donahue, who at that time was responsible for McDonald’s USA external relations as a Vice-President). The wife was being reviewed as a potential partner with McDonald’s in this matter. Mr Donahue found her to be “an ideal candidate”. However, after several meetings Mr Donahue found that, although the wife illustrated a personal commitment to the project, he and his colleagues often experienced problems due to her “personal inability to be as accessible as was necessary”. Arranging meetings became difficult. The whole project then stalled. The husband told me that the wife’s association with animal welfare organisations came about because he had long been concerned with animal welfare and had introduced the wife to several such organisations including to VIVA in 2005, which became the wife’s main, animal charitable cause. Thus his introductions of the wife to these organisations were, I find, instrumental in McDonald’s engaging in serious, business discussions with the wife in late 2005 and early 2006. Again there is a conflict between wife and husband over who is to blame for the stalling of this project. As with Smart Talk, I find that, had the wife really intended to carry the McDonald’s project through, she would have done so and would not have taken “no” from the husband for an answer.
The wife says that the husband “turned down many opportunities to help my charities” (paragraph 55 of her affidavit of 30 January 2008) and that his “refusal to commit” made any of his appearances on behalf of a charity much less effective. Furthermore (paragraph 56) the husband often promised to make financial contributions to charities but later refused to follow it through.
I have to say that the facts as I find them to be do not support the wife’s case. Within two months of the parties meeting in May 1999 the husband donated £150,000 to the wife’s charity (the Heather Mills Health Trust). In December 2002 and again in December 2003 the husband made a gift of £250,000 outright to the wife, thus plainly giving her the opportunity to make donations to charity. In April 2000 the husband’s sister-in-law effectively introduced her to “Adopt a Minefield” (“AAM”). This charity became one of the wife’s principle charitable concerns. The wife accepted in her cross-examination that in respect of the husband’s direct and indirect contribution to AAM between January 2001 and late 2005 the husband contributed approximately £3,425,000. During his “Back in the World” Tour in 2002 the husband wore T shirts with “No more landmines” on them which raised a further £100,000 for AAM. In February 2003 the husband performed at the 50th birthday party of the husband of the producer of the Larry King Show in return for a donation of $1m from that person to AAM. In the summer of 2005 the husband introduced the wife to VIVA, to where the wife donated her earning from Dancing with the Stars in the spring of 2007. I find that, far from the husband dictating to and restricting the wife’s career and charitable activities, he did the exact opposite, as he says. He encouraged it and lent his support, name and reputation to her business and charitable activities. The facts as I find them do not in any way support her claim.
SHE SAYS
As to the contributions in the past the wife seeks to paint the following picture. She was a good mother, which the husband readily concedes. However, the wife’s case is that her contribution throughout the marriage was “exceptional”.
JUDGE SAYS
The wife summed up her contribution at paragraph 145 in this way: “I was his full time wife, mother, lover, confidante, business partner and psychologist”. The husband, in my judgment, met this issue, as with the other issues, candidly and honestly. He agreed that the wife together with his family and friends had helped him through his grieving for Linda. He said that for about a year after Linda’s death he was in a sad state and that the wife exhibited the normal reactions of any kindly person. He denied he had lost his confidence. Her case that in some way she single-handedly saved him was exaggerated. As to the property renovations the husband said they both made the necessary arrangements and jointly discussed the projects.
He denied that she had encouraged him to return to touring. He firmly said that she contributed nothing on the tours. She did not design sets or assist with the lighting. He had a team of specialists for all technical matters. He was shown a DVD where the wife appeared in the credits under “artistic coordination”. He said that that was a favour to the wife, a romantic gesture. He agreed she attended many of his concerts because the wife enjoyed being there and loved him. Another DVD was shown in which the wife can be seen photographing the husband and his team on their private plane. She asserted that this was part of her work for the husband. The husband, I thought, in a telling comment, said that the wife liked to be the centre of attention and she enjoyed wielding a camera. He gave her full credit for the idea of the acrylic finger nail which, he told me, was a brilliant idea.
In my judgment the picture painted by the husband of the wife’s part in his emotional and professional life is much closer to reality than the wife’s account. The wife, as the husband said, enjoys being the centre of attention. Her presence on his tours came about because she loved the husband, enjoyed being there and because she thoroughly enjoyed the media and public attention. I am prepared to accept that her presence was emotionally supportive to him but to suggest that in some way she was his “business partner” is, I am sorry to have to say,
make-belief. The wife, I find, was fully involved in the planning and construction of the Cabin, which was their matrimonial home. But the picture she describes of being the sole, or virtually the sole, organiser or arranger of renovating etc in the husband’s other properties is, I find,
exaggerated. I am sure she played a significant part, but it was very much in conjunction with the husband.
I have to say that the wife’s evidence that in some way she was the husband’s “psychologist”, even allowing for hyperbole, is
typical of her make-belief. I reject her evidence that she, vis-à-vis the husband, was anything more than a kind and loving person who was deeply in love with him, helped him through his grieving and like any new wife tried to integrate into their relationship the children of his former marriage.
I wholly reject her account that she rekindled the husband’s professional flame and gave him back his confidence.
In her final submissions the wife described her contribution as “exceptional”.
I reject her case. I am afraid I have to say her case on this issue is
devoid of reality. The husband’s evidence is far more persuasive.
- Further, he asserted (and there is no dispute) that he made substantial capital payments to the wife over and above an annual allowance of £360,000 per annum. He lent her monies in respect of his purchase and renovation of Angel’s Rest. In 2002 and 2003 he gave her cash totalling £500,000. He lent Fiona Mills £421,000 to buy a property and purchased a house for Sonya Mills for £193,000. In 2005 he purchased jewellery for the wife worth £264,000.
- It is unnecessary in the instant case to arrive at a precise figure for the total wealth of the husband, given its enormous size. As he has always accepted, he can pay any sum which the court considers appropriate as for financial provision for the wife. Nevertheless I find that the husband’s total wealth amounts to approximately £400m.
I reject the wife’s case that he is worth £800m.
There is absolutely no evidence at all to support that figure or any figure anywhere near it.
- On 2 November 2005 the wife e-mailed Mr Paul Winn, MPL’s finance director, in respect of the property at Thames Reach that “the amount outstanding on the mortgage is £480,000” and “please pay it in the following account and I will deal with the closure of it”. The account was a NatWest bank account in the name of the wife. On 5 November the wife e-mailed Mr Winn that “there are 4 loans with different companies on the property totalling £480,000 …”. Mr Winn pressed for full details on each loan. In February 2006 the wife again e-mailed Mr Winn about the loans and on 28 February instructed him to pay £450,000 into her account “so that I can settle this situation”. On 1 March Mr Winn told the wife in an e-mail that he would not pay any sum “without proof that the loans exist or some protection secured on the property at Thames Reach”. In her Replies to Questionnaire dated 6 February 2007, in response to a question to annotate the wife’s bank accounts showing discharge of the 4 loans and indicating the recipient of each payment, it was said “the wife did not have any loans”. The wife in her cross-examination accepted that Thames Reach was bought mortgage free and never had a mortgage on it. But she said that at the time of the e-mails referred to above she believed that there were loans secured on the property.
Mr Mostyn put to her that that was a fraudulent attempt to extract money from the husband.
In my judgment it is unnecessary to go so far as to characterise what the wife attempted as fraudulent. However, it is not an episode that does her any credit whatsoever. Either she knew or must have known that there were no loans on Thames Reach, yet she tried to suggest that there were and thereby obtain monies by underhand means. Her attempts when cross-examined to suggest that she may have got in a muddle and confused this property with others, to my mind, had a hollow ring. In the light of the husband’s generosity towards her, as I have set out,
I find the wife’s behaviour distinctly distasteful. In any event, as Mr Mostyn rightly submitted, it
damages her overall credibility.- Between the filing of her Form E and the final hearing in February 2008 the wife’s assets changed and increased. The wife received a total allowance of £180,000 in March 2007. On 1 March 2007 the husband agreed to pay to the wife £2.5m as an interim lump sum. In June 2007 the husband paid £3m towards the cost of the purchase of the wife’s home at Pean’s Wood near Robertsbridge.
- In my judgment the wife’s attitude in her Form E, her open offers, her oral and written evidence, and her submissions is that she is entitled for the indefinite future, if not for the whole of her life, to live at the same “rate” as the husband and to be kept in the style to which she perceives she was accustomed during the marriage. Although she strongly denied it
her case boils down to the syndrome of “me, too” or “if he has it, I want it too”. I shall say more about this when I consider what are the wife’s needs. It must have been absolutely plain to the wife after separation that it was
wholly unrealistic to expect to go on living at the rate at which she perceived she was living.
- The personal expenditure included £349,862 allegedly paid on security.
No invoices were ever produced, despite repeated request of the wife during the final hearing and despite promises by her to bring them. The wife explained in her cross-examination that she was paying for her security in cash “so Paul can’t find out who they are”. However she said that she would allow me to see the invoices. She told me that she was afraid that if the husband saw the invoices he would leak details of the security arrangements for her and Beatrice. Nevertheless she told me she would produce the invoices to me. She never did. Thus, although she has annotated her bank statements identifying the items which she says are payments for security,
not one single invoice or receipt has been produced to verify those payments.- I accept that the wife has spent sums on security but I am not satisfied that she has in fact spent nearly £350,000 in security in the 15 months period. I consider her reason for her unwillingness for the husband to see any invoices is a
smokescreen to seek to try and explain away her failure to produce them.
I reject completely the suggestion that the husband would in some way jeopardise the security of the wife and Beatrice.
I also detect symptoms of other, unreasonable expenditure to some extent in chartering planes which include helicopters.
- I am satisfied that the wife chose that house freely and in the knowledge that that was to be her and, when Beatrice was with her, Beatrice’s home for the foreseeable future. The wife now says she feels a prisoner there, as she put it, in the middle of nowhere.
I find that inconsistent with her having already spent on it £675,000 and wanting another £400,000 to put in a swimming-pool.
- The wife’s case is that her earning capacity is now zero. The wife, as I have said, blames the husband for his attitude towards her working during the marriage.
That I have found to be a false case. I accept that since April 2006 the wife has had a bad press. She is entitled to feel that she has been ridiculed even vilified.
To some extent she is her own worst enemy. She has an explosive and volatile character. She cannot have done herself any good in the eyes of potential purchasers of her services as a TV presenter, public speaker and a model, by her outbursts in her TV interviews in October and November 2007.
- The wife would say she is at a severe disadvantage.
I think she overplays her hand. First, she was able to secure in the spring of 2007 a valuable contract, Dancing with the Stars, from which she received £110,000 for 2 months work. Second, in June 2007 she gave the following evidence to the Senior District Judge when being cross examined by Mr Peter Jackson QC for the husband.
“Q: Let me take it then that you are not going to be thinking of moving to Slovenia with Beatrice? A: I am not thinking of moving anywhere and there are 20 statements live on TV shows to promote Dancing with the Stars - - -
Q: It will help us - - - A: - - saying I will never move abroad, I will never live abroad, because I want to keep my daughter near her father. I am renowned for saying that, and to suggest anything else is just speculation on what Paul or the press have put together. Live, I have been asked it a million times and I have said I will never move abroad. I want Beatrice to be near her father - - - -
Q: So we can ignore any thought that you might want to take Beatrice to Los Angeles or any other part of the United States or anywhere - - - A: 100%. 100%. I have turned down huge amounts of work. This Dancing with the Stars was a one-off short thing that Judge Waller knew everything about in the last case and is not a tour, is not anything. It had cleared my name- - -”
Her evidence there that she had turned down huge amounts of work is quite inconsistent with her assertion that her earning capacity is zero. Third, during the hearing before me the wife was asked and agreed to produce a schedule of all offers of work from the US since separation. She produced no schedule or list.
- The wife’s budget is in the total figure of £3.25m p.a. The wife has stuck to that in her Form E, her open offers, her oral and written evidence and in her submissions to me. In her open offers she agreed to accept a lump sum of £50m. But this “concession” (as it was expressed to me) graphically illustrates the
sheer unreasonableness of the demand for £3.25m p.a.
- The initial claim totalled £125m. She claims for seven fully staffed properties with full-time housekeepers in the annual sum of £645,000. She claims holiday expenditure of £499,000 p.a. (including private and helicopter flights of £185,000), £125,000 p.a. for her clothes, £30,000 p.a. for equestrian activities (she no longer rides), £39,000 p.a. for wine (she does not drink alcohol), £43,000 p.a. for a driver, £20,000 p.a. for a carer, and professional fees of £190,000 p.a. All these items Mr Mostyn submits are theoretically recognised heads of expenditure but
“extraordinarily exaggerated”.He, next, submits that the following items are not only hugely exaggerated but also impermissible in principle. They are £542,000 p.a. for security, £627,000 p.a. for charitable donations, £73,000 p.a. for the cost of business staff and £39,000 p.a. for helicopter hospital flights. Mr Mostyn submits that the wife seeks not merely to replicate the marital standard of living for life but also to enhance it.
- One of the largest items in the wife’s budget is security in the sum of £367,000 for the wife and £175,000 for Beatrice i.e. a total of £542,000. The wife professes extreme concern for the safety and well-being of herself and Beatrice. She wants round the clock security including bodyguards for herself and Beatrice. She showed me a DVD of at least one paparazzi following her car in Brighton. It is correct that in December 2006 death threats were made against her but
there is no evidence that there have been any such threats since. The wife told me in evidence that she has received abuse and nasty messages on her website. She says she is concerned by “crazy fans”. She told me she wants security “until she is an old lady”.
However
her evidence on this contentious issue is at variance with the evidence she put before the Senior District Judge in March 2007. On 6 March in her evidence to the Senior District Judge she said: “Our life in Brighton is really beginning to shape in Brighton …. I am so much happier now with life since the tabloid press have slowly begun to lay off me. Yes, there are a few stories here and there; and yes, a few paparazzi still follow me around, but I expect this to pass and I am feeling very positive about our future” Of course, a year has passed since then. She unwisely gave interviews in October and November 2007 which may have produced intrusion into her life by the media. But that was very largely self-inflicted.
PAUL: My real concern with Heather’s demands for bodyguards 24 hours a day is our daughter. Unless on tour, my older children had very little security. They all attended local state schools. It is not healthy for a child to have security 24/7. It sets them apart from their peers and makes them an object of curiosity and, at times, ridicule. Such children live in gilded cages. I do not want this for Beatrice. I am rarely photographed with Beatrice. She needs as normal an upbringing as possible, and surrounding her with round the clock security is not the way to achieve this.”
Furthermore, he said in that affidavit that he found the wife’s approach to the press contradictory. On the one hand she loved and courted their attention. On the other hand she is obsessed with her portrayal in the media. He further explained that the more the security the greater the interest shown by the paparazzi who enjoy the chase. In his oral evidence he expressed much the same views. He agreed that during the marriage there was a heightened level of security because that was what the wife wanted and he went along with it. There was no need for such a level now. The husband in his open offer has stated that he will undertake to the court to meet the reasonable cost of security for the wife and Beatrice for 2 years from the date of the order not exceeding £150,000 p.a. to be discharged by him directly upon presentation by the wife of invoices to her from the security provider. In my judgment that is very fair and will meet the need of the wife and Beatrice for security. I accept his evidence and viewpoint. The husband is entitled to insist on invoices being produced.
- Charity expenditure at an annual rate of £627,000 includes airfares of £180,000 for commercial flights, £120,000 for helicopter flights, and £192,000 for private flights. I accept that the wife is very committed to charities and their causes but the degree of such proposed expenditure is, I am sorry to have to say,
ridiculous. However I do propose to allow in what I shall assess as her income needs (generously interpreted) a modest sum for carrying out her charitable activities and making donations to charity. If she wishes to make further donations over and above that sum then she can do that from her earnings. Holidays are put into her budget at £499,000 which is made up of accommodation at £242,000, helicopter flights at £35,000, commercial flights at £72,000 and private flights at £150,000. I accept the wife’s evidence that she has always since the age of 25 flown first class and that when she and Beatrice fly they should go first class. The husband accepted this in his evidence. But the figures given are much, much too high in every respect.
These items in her budget which I have touched upon above, illustrate generally speaking, how
unreasonable (even generously interpreted) are the claimed needs of the wife. In the absence of any sensible proposal by the wife as to her income needs I must do the best I can on the material I have. If the wife feels aggrieved about what I propose she only has herself to blame. If, as she has done,
a litigant flagrantly over-eggs the pudding and thus deprives the court of any sensible assistance, then he or she is likely to find that the court takes a robust view and drastically prunes the proposed budget.
(My favourite: I like the way she asked for £600,000+ a year from Sir Paul just so she could hand on the money to charity as if it had come from her own pocket)
- The conduct complained of by the wife can be summarised as follows. Prior to their separation at the end of April 2006 the husband treated the wife abusively and/or violently culminating in the unhappy events of 25 April 2006 upon which, in her oral submissions, she placed great reliance. He abused alcohol and drugs. He was possessive and jealous. He failed to protect the wife from the attention of the media. He was insensitive to her disability. Furthermore, it is alleged that post separation the husband manipulated and colluded with the press against the wife and has failed to enforce confidentiality by his friends and associates. The wife blames the husband for the leaking to the media of her Answer and Cross-Petition which alleges in strong terms unreasonable behaviour by the husband against her. The husband has failed to provide her with a sufficient degree of security from the media and generally he has behaved badly.
The husband did not seek to introduce any pre-separation conduct. However, he did seek to persuade the court that it would be inequitable to disregard the wife’s post separation conduct. Paragraph 106 of the opening note of Mr Mostyn and Mr Bishop reads:
“In our Conduct Note we identify the three discrete episodes of post-marital behaviour by W which we submit pass the s25(2)(g) threshold. The evidence in support of H’s allegations is extensively laid out in his s25 affidavit at Paragraphs 146-176 [X3/B13/58-74]. The court will also be invited to take into account other informative context namely W’s unreasonable defence of the divorce (see the affidavit of Mrs Shackleton [X1/A/63] and pursuit of the libel/privacy proceedings [X3/B13/74-77]).”
Mr Mostyn distilled the wife’s conduct into three episodes. First, it is said on 25 June 2006
the wife illegally bugged the husband’s telephone, in particular a call between him and his daughter Stella in which Stella made very unflattering comments about the wife. It is further said the wife subsequently leaked the intercepted material to the press so as to discredit him. Second, on 17 October 2006 the wife, or someone acting on her behalf, leaked to the media some or all of the contents of her Answer and Cross-Petition which contained untrue and distorted allegations against the husband in orders to discredit him. Third, the wife has failed to abide by court orders re confidentiality. On 31 October 2007 and 1 November 2007 the wife gave several interviews to UK and US television stations in which she made many false statements about the husband and these proceedings in order to discredit him. Individually and collectively these actions, it is said, represent a deliberate attempt by the wife to ruin the husband’s reputation.
Both the wife and the husband accuse each other of conducting a campaign of harassment and vilification. The reality is that if I let the husband deploy a case about bugging telephones together with subsequent release of them to the press, this will open up a can of worms and the litigation may inevitably snowball with claim and counter claim.