A British court ordered former Beatle
Paul McCartney on Monday to pay his estranged wife Heather
Mills 24.3 million pounds ($48.7 million) after an acrimonious
divorce battle.
The settlement was only a fifth of the sum she had sought
but she still ended up with the equivalent of about $34,000 for
each day of her four-year marriage to the pop icon.
Speaking after the judge's ruling, Mills said: "I am so
glad it is over. It is an incredible result in the end.
"We are very, very pleased," she added. "I am so, so happy
with it." McCartney declined to comment.
McCartney, 65, married the former model and charity
campaigner Mills, 40, in 2002 but they separated four years
later, blaming media intrusion into their private lives. They
have a daughter, Beatrice, aged four.
Following one of the most bitter divorce battles in
show business history, the couple failed to reach an agreement
after six days in court last month, leaving the judge to set
the final figure.
Mills criticized McCartney's lawyer Fiona Shackleton,
accusing her of handling the case badly.
She said Shackleton, who also represented
heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles in his divorce from Princess
Diana, "has called me many, many names before even meeting me,
when I was in a wheelchair."
Mills, who sacked her lawyer and represented herself in
court, urged would-be divorcees to do the same. "You can be a
litigating person," she said. "You'd save yourself a fortune."
Justice Hugh Bennett, giving details of the settlement,
said: "She sought an award of almost 125 million pounds. Sir
Paul proposed the wife should exit the marriage with assets of
15.8 million pounds inclusive of any lump sum award.
"The judgment decided that the husband should pay the wife
a lump sum of 16.5 million pounds, which together with her
assets of 7.8 million pounds means that she exits her marriage
with total assets of 24.3 million pounds."
DAUGHTER
The split was fought out under a remorseless media
spotlight with McCartney, a founder of the world's most famous
pop group, pitted against the outspoken Mills, target of lurid
tales in the press about her colorful past.
The court ruled that the judgment be made public, but
stayed publication pending Mills' appeal against it being made
public.
Mills, speaking to a phalanx of reporters on the steps of
London's High Court, said she was appealing "because the
judgment involves private secure matters of my daughter."
Referring to what their daughter would receive, Mills said:
"Beatrice only gets 35,000 pounds a year. So obviously she's
meant to travel B Class while her father travels A class, but
obviously I will pay for that."
Asked if she now planned to move abroad, Mills said: "I
can't leave England. I always wanted to keep my daughter near
her father. Believe me if I tried to go, he would have an
injunction on me in a second."
Source: Reuters.
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