Court overturns ruling that forced businessman to pay for ex-wife's 'poor' investments

The Supreme Court today overturned a judgement which had ordered a businessman to increase maintenance to his former wife more than a decade after their divorce.

Graham Mills was told by the Court of Appeal last year to increase monthly maintenance payments to ex-wife Maria from £1,100 per month to £1,441 for life after she lost cash in “unwise” property investments and was “unable to meet her basic needs”.

He appealed against the increase, arguing that he “should not be the insurer against the wife’s poor financial decisions” and saying it was unfair that he should “pick up the tab” years after they split.

The UK’s highest court backed him today and reverted the payments back to £1,100.

The judgment delivered by Lord Wilson said the Court of Appeal had “erred” and it was “unfair to expect the husband to meet these increased needs in full.”

He said: “There is no doubt that Mrs Mills needed the extra and that Mr Mills could have afforded to pay it. But we have no doubt that the original trial judge was right.

“We allow the appeal of Mr Mills and restore the trial judge’s order that his monthly payments should continue only at the rate originally set in 2002.”

Mr Mills, 52, said it was a “hollow victory” and that he would fight on because he believed he should not have to pay anything to his former wife.

He added: “I have been prudent and done the right thing and I am still being penalised, it’s just not right. I am going to try to overturn the decision that I should pay. She should be mortgage-free now, I should not be paying her rent. I want to move on and I can’t.”

Mr Mills, from Guildford, had said in a newspaper interview that UK courts were “outmoded and dangerous” and were turning men into “cash machines for life” and setting feminism back 20 years by making women “dependent on men”.

Mrs Mills, 51, received a £230,000 lump sum and the £1,100 monthly maintenance payments when she split from her husband.

But since their divorce in 2002 she had invested the money “unwisely” in a series of properties, landing herself in debt because of her “poor” decisions, a court previously heard.

She attempted to move “upmarket” from a house in Weybridge to a three-bedroom flat in Wimbledon and then to a two-bedroom apartment in a luxury Victorian mansion block in Battersea.

The court was told Mrs Mills “over-financed” each of her homes, increasing her mortgage liabilities. But she failed to offset them with enough profit from the sale of the properties.

She is now living in a rented home, back where she started in Raynes Park, and works two days a week as a beauty therapist.