Confessions of a divorce lawyer...
Amazing real-life tales of love split rows and revenge
As a specialist divorce lawyer with 40 years’ experience, Vanessa Lloyd Platt has seen it all. Couples carrying out ruthless acts of revenge, divorcing over a tarantula, and arguing over the garden furniture is just part and parcel of the job.
While it can have its glamorous side, Vanessa, who has represented stars such as Les Dennis, Anne Diamond and TV’s Dr Hilary Jones, says working as a divorce lawyer is tough too.
“People think it’s easy,” Vanessa says. “Actually we have to deal with huge emotional fallout from clients. We’re like psychologists in a way.
“There are times when you feel you are living in a soap. Some of the things people do to each other are ridiculous.”
Vanessa is dishing the dirt as BBC One drama The Split began last night.
The six-part show is set in London’s divorce law circuit and follows the lives of three sisters – lawyers Hannah and Nina and their youngest sibling Rose. Most of the divorce lawyers in the drama are female, reflecting changes in the profession.
“When I first started, there were very few women lawyers in divorce, but they’re now the force to be reckoned with.”
The ruthless world depicted is one of cheating and betrayal – and the warring couples aren’t much better.
Adultery is one of the most common causes for divorce, although straightforward lust may not always be the reason. In her book, Secrets of Relationship Success, Vanessa found men making this admission about infidelity: “I asked 80 men who had committed adultery to set out reasons. One of the most common given was, ‘My wife had started to look and sound like her mother’.” Some of the more shocking cases involve revenge, but Vanessa warns it comes back to bite people. She says: “A wife drove her husband’s Mercedes to a clifftop, got out, took off the handbrake and allowed it to topple over the edge. It was destroyed, but what she didn’t realise was that the court would deduct it from her settlement. Revenge isn’t sweet. The car was worth £60,000 and her capital claims were severely affected.
“A wife who poured paint stripper over her estranged husband’s car was found guilty of criminal damage.
“One of the funniest incidents was where my client’s wife wanted to end the relationship. She was so annoyed that she strutted into his meeting with high-flying businessmen from Japan and all she was wearing was a fur
coat. She exposed herself to everyone. The husband was furious – he thought he’d lose this really important deal.
The businessmen said it was the best meeting they’d been to, but we got injunctions to stop her doing it again.” A bad smell lingers over two other stories of revenge. One wife arranged for manure to be delivered to the home of her husband’s mistress. Another woman hid a prawn inside a lamp the couple were fighting about. For weeks he had a foul smell in his new flat until he found the decomposing crustacean.
Vanessa recalls: “Afterwards, he got a plate of prawns delivered to her and said, ‘I’d heard revenge was a dish best served cold but I hadn’t heard about prawns!’ They both laugh about it now.
“Love and hate are so closely linked. People can flit between feeling so in love to feeling so much anger that is beyond control. Our job as divorce lawyers is to control it.”
A trend Vanessa has noticed is couples fighting over pets. She had to draft her first
My wife had started to look and sound like her mother.. VANESSA LLOYD PRATT REVEALS MOST COMMON EXCUSE GIVEN TO HER BY MEN WHO COMMITTED ADULTERY
“pet-nup”, the animal equivalent of a pre-nuptial agreement. One case involved a tarantula called Timmy. “The client’s husband insisted on having Timmy in a glass case next to the bed. She said, ‘Either Timmy goes or I do’. She went.” Arguments over possessions are common but one of the stranger objects her client fought over was a trowel and fork garden set. “The couple had dealt with the house, the properties and the children,” she says, “But they were fighting over a garden set. This went on until I bought a shiny new one for my client and said, ‘Can we call it a day?’” So if do you find yourself in a divorce hole, stop digging. Vanessa Lloyd Platt is founder of Lloyd Platt & Co divorcesolicitors.com