Mills and boom

Mar 18 2008 The Journal

HEATHER Mills will walk away from her four-year marriage to Sir Paul McCartney with £24.3m.

The former Beatle has been asked by the Royal Courts of Justice to pay just a fraction of the settlement claimed by his estranged wife in their bitter divorce battle.

But Washington-born Miss Mills will still be set up for life by the massive settlement.

Sir Paul must pay her a lump sum of £16.5m as opposed to her claim for almost £125m. He had offered Miss Mills £15.8m.

Miss Mills, who leaves the marriage with a total of £24.3m after taking her own assets into account, immediately announced on the steps of the court that she will fight on.

She said she was “so pleased it’s over” but said she is to continue her legal battle as early as today by challenging the judge’s ruling that the whole of his ruling should be made public.

Speaking on the steps of the High Court, she insisted she was “very very happy” with the decision.

Mr Justice Bennett said in his summary that the fundamental issue of the main divorce hearing heard in private over six days last month was what financial provision should be made for Miss Mills.

In his ruling, he said there was no evidence that Sir Paul’s assets were in excess of £800m, but were about £400m.

The judge, who wants the whole of his ruling to be made public, was anxious to end the speculation surrounding the divorce proceedings and figures claimed by the warring couple.

Miss Mills said that the settlement secured her own future and that of her and Sir Paul’s daughter Beatrice – as well as her charities.

Describing herself as a “campaigning girl”, she urged couples to do their best to resolve their problems immediately.

She said: “Obviously the court do not want a litigant in person to do well, it’s against everything that they ever wish, so when they write the judgment up, they’re never going to make it look in favour.”

Miss Mills said the only reason she was speaking out was because Sir Paul had “insisted” on the whole judgment being published. That aspect was the only reason why she planned to launch an appeal today.

She wanted it to stay private as the judgment involved matters relating to her daughter, such as where she went to school and what she did.

“Everything about her is in there.”

Four-year-old Beatrice will receive periodical payments of £35,000 per annum from Sir Paul, who is also paying for her nanny and her school fees.

Miss Mills commented: “So, she’s obviously meant to travel B class while her father travels A class – but obviously I will pay for that.”

She said “a lot of strange things” had been going on behind the scenes, but did not want to go into “all the horrific details” of what had happened”.

She added: “I’m going to go and be with my daughter because I took so much time away from her.”

She said that she loved England as all her friends and family were here, but could not leave the country with her daughter, or Sir Paul would have an injunction on her “in a second”.

Legal experts estimated the total costs of the case at a figure in excess of £5m.

Miss Mills questioned the judge’s conclusion that Sir Paul was worth around £400m, saying “everybody knows” he had twice that.

She insisted Sir Paul had always wanted the judgment to be public “because he wants to look like this generous Sir Paul”.

Mr Justice Bennett said that the court had granted Miss Mills a stay of publication of the full judgment pending her appeal to the Court of Appeal against his decision that the full text could be published.

Later it was announced by court officials that the appeal against the release of the full judgment is expected to be heard today.