Ten minutes to split Johnsons’ ‘£4m fortune’
PM’s wife in line to get half in divorce deal
BORIS Johnson and his estranged wife Marina Wheeler yesterday agreed a divorce settlement in a tenminute court hearing two years after they separated.
It is believed the Prime Minister’s wife and mother of their four children could receive a £2million payout from their estimated £4million fortune.
The agreement was reached in a private hearing at London’s Central Family Court. Judge Sarah Gibbons gave Miss Wheeler, 55, permission to apply for a decree absolute which would end the couple’s 27-year marriage.
The couple married in 1993 but split in 2018 after 55-year-old Mr Johnson’s affair with his now-girlfriend Carrie Symonds, 31, came to light. Their eldest daughter, who is only five years younger than Miss Symonds, reportedly branded her father a ‘selfish b******’.
Mr Johnson has had at least five extra-marital flings. At least two mistresses became pregnant.
He is set to be the first Prime Minister to divorce while in No10 since the Duke of Grafton more than 250 years ago.
The hearing yesterday was listed as Wheeler v Johnson and confirmed Miss Wheeler began the litigation. The couple did not attend court but were represented by lawyers. Members of the public were barred from the hearing.
Reporters were allowed in the court but were told not to identify any of the four children or to give details of financial information presented to the judge.
The judge gave permission for Miss Wheeler to apply for her decree absolute ‘out of time.’
Applications for the decree must normally be made within 12 months of a decree nisi, but a judge can vary this. Mr Johnson and his wife made a £1million profit after selling their Grade II listed London home last year.
The couple bought the four-bedroom property in 1999 for £2.3million and sold it for £3.35million.
Land Registry records reveal the couple also jointly owned a £1.25million farmhouse in Thame, Oxfordshire, which was bought for £ 640,000 in 2003 but may recently have been sold as part of their settlement.
Mr Johnson was the highestearning MP in the last Parliament with speeches and articles earning him almost £800,000. He married Oxford University sweetheart Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987, but they divorced in 1993 after he cheated on her with Marina.
In 2004, his four-year affair with journalist and society author Petronella Wyatt, the daughter of Labour grandee Lord Wyatt, became public. She later told how she had an abortion and suffered a miscarriage. Mr Johnson was sacked as shadow arts minister by then Tory leader Michael Howard for lying about the relationship. Mr Howard’s spokesman said at the time the issue was one of ‘personal morality’.
Two years later, the News of the World reported an affair with journalist Anna Fazackerley.
Miss Wheeler, the daughter of BBC journalist Charles Wheeler, threw her husband out of their home, but the couple later patched things up.
The following year he fathered a child with art consultant Helen Macintyre. It is understood barrister Miss Wheeler – a QC – again kicked him out.
The love-child was first revealed by the Mail in 2010, and in 2013 a court ruled that it was in the public interest for the Press to report that Mr Johnson was the father.
After the Tory leader separated from Miss Wheeler he began a relationship with Miss Symonds who became the first unmarried partner of a Prime Minister to live in 10 Downing Street.
Last year the couple bought a £1.2million home in Camberwell, south east London.
Mr Johnson was a childhood friend of Miss Wheeler when they were both pupils at the prestigious European School in Brussels.
Last year Miss Wheeler revealed she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer but later said she was free of the disease.
‘First No10 split in over 250 years’