TV show’s ‘indulgent dad’ didn’t pay for our kids says ex
WHEN he boasted that he and his wife spent £100,000 on their twins, TV presenter Dan Hill was branded Britain’s most indulgent dad.
But now his former partner, Charis Williams, has accused him of pennypinching over child maintenance for their two children – claiming he has paid just £505 in the past four years.
Mr Hill, who appears on the auction show Storage Hunters UK on digital channel Dave, last month told of shopping in Harrods for goodies for Isabella and Jacob, who are just two months old.
The 33-year- old and wife Louise, 36, bought the same £2,500 white Mima pram as Kim Kardashian and Kanye West and a wardrobe of designer outfits for once-only use. Purchases also included a £1,250 Louis Vuitton changing bag, £600 teddy bears and £1,600 ornamental milk bottles covered in Swarovski crystals.
The big-spending couple had a £120,000 wedding last year, then spent £20,000 on IVF treatment before Mrs Hill became pregnant, and a further £19,000 preparing for the twins’ births.
Mrs Hill also said she was planning to spend £20,000 on the twins’ first birthday party.
But Miss Williams, also 33 and a TV presenter, claims Mr Hill has failed to pay most of the child maintenance money due for his daughter Tiger, nine, and son Ely, six, over the past five years.
She told a local newspaper: ‘Dan is making a mockery of the system. Being in the media, not paying maintenance and flaunting the way he wastes money should be a wake-up call to the Child Support Agency. Countless others get away with it – and it’s the children who are suffering.’
Miss Williams, host of Channel 4’s The Salvage Sister, claims Mr Hill has paid just £505 of more than £9,000 due since December 2010. She says the figure owed should be even higher but Mr Hill has not declared his true income to government officials.
‘He has never paid what he should pay. It has been 20 quid here, five quid there. I did not receive anything for the first year,’ she said.
Miss Williams, from Brighton, who ended her relationship with Mr Hill five years ago, is now campaigning for new laws to tackle the issue.
‘The Child Support Agency don’t seem to have any power to enforce the laws in place and by the time they get anywhere your child will probably be an adult,’ she said
Mr Hill, who lives near Guildford, Surrey, made his name on Channel 4 show Superscrimpers and also advises viewers of Storage Hunters UK on how to make money by selling unwanted items. But his new wife is not known for her frugality. She owns a dog pampering business called Diva Dogs and was once revealed to have spent more than £100,000 in six years on her Yorkshire terriers Larry, Lulu, Lolly and Lola.
Mr Hill said yesterday he gave Miss Williams £10,000 in cash, a Land Rover and ‘absolutely everything in the house that I bought’ when they separated and claims she had prevented him from seeing their children.
He added: ‘I have recently told the CSA to calculate how much I should pay at the end of the tax year and I will pay what they tell me to. I have never shirked responsibility for my children.’
‘Never paid what he should’