Banker ‘assaulted wife at £11m home’
Husband admits gold digger jibe in blazing row over their divorce
A FORMER banker assaulted his wife in their £ 11million stately home after he accused her of being a gold digger, a court heard.
Clive Standish, 68, is alleged to have attacked his wife Anna in a divorce row amid suspicions that she was having an ‘inappropriate relationship’.
Mrs Standish told magistrates that her husband had a ‘wild and menacing look in his eyes’ when he confronted her in Moundsmere Manor in Hampshire – a mansion with a mile-long drive, a tennis court and a swimming pool.
She had filed for divorce the year before the row in March 2020 but was still living with her husband.
Mrs Standish said: ‘I [had] asked him what he had been doing all day and he said “thinking about this bloody divorce” and called me a gold digger. He was so angry.’
She alleged he then raised a fist at a female bystander and swung a punch, adding: ‘If she didn’t jump back he would have hit her. He had a clenched fist.’
She told the court that she went inside the house and tried to close a door to lock Standish outside but he started ramming the door to get it open. She added: ‘He had a wild and menacing look in his eyes. His face was at the door and he was shouting. I had a sore arm because he was forcing the door with full force.’
The bystander told Aldershot magistrates: ‘He came out screaming... he was saying that she was a gold digger and saying horrible stuff in an angry voice.
‘He was really red with anger, like he wanted to kill us or something.
He was barging the door with all his body weight. He knocked in the door and he looked like he wanted to take a swing at [Mrs Standish] as well.’
Mrs Standish also told the court that her husband constantly checked her emails, went through her computer and her car’s navigation system.
She said: ‘There was a lot of vio
lence and angriness from Clive. It was uncomfortable.’ Standish denies assaulting either woman.
He told the court there were issues in his marriage as far back as 2013 and that he had begun to suspect that his wife ‘was conducting an inappropriate relationship with a particular man’.
Of the alleged attack on the bystander, he said: ‘I raised my hand about shoulder height and [she] stopped dead in her tracks. Anna saw this immediately and grasped my hand with both arms. She said I was going to hit her. I said I most certainly was not. I made absolutely no attempt to swing a punch whatsoever.
‘I immediately followed them towards the door. Anna was closing it and I stopped her from closing it. I didn’t push particularly hard.’ He said this was when he called his wife a gold digger because he claimed that Mrs Standish said ‘I’m going to get you out of Moundsmere’ which he took to be a sign of her intent regarding the divorce.
The court also heard texts Standish had sent to one of Mrs Standish’s children from her first marriage, in which he claimed that the raising of a fist to the bystander was his way ‘to find out your mother’s intention of the divorce’.
The court heard the couple first met in 1996 while they were both married to other people. After living together in Switzerland and Australia, they moved into Moundsmere Manor, pictured, in 2011. They have two children.
Standish was a chief financial officer of banking giant UBS till his retirement in the wake of huge subprime mortgage losses in 2007.
Nevertheless he shared a payout of almost £ 45million with the bank’s former chief executive and head of investment banking.
His stately home is set in 83 acres near the village of Preston Candover, was built in 1908 but the original manor dates back even further. It was once owned by Henry VIII and formed part of the wedding gifts for two of his wives – Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard.
The trial was adjourned and will hear more evidence on May 25.