Family demand action after inquest into death of ‘black widow’ husband
Ziuzina tricked Barry, claimed everything, then ends up living like a queen in a villa in Spain. She is a black widow. Who says crime doesn’t pay?”
Ms Ziuzina vanished shortly after returning to London following her husband’s death in a hit-and-run incident in Kiev as the couple left a roadside restaurant, where they had celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
The inquest into Mr Pring’s death at County Hall in Exeter, Devon, was told that Ms Zuizina was seen making repeated trips to the roadside restaurant’s bathroom to talk on her mobile phone on February 16, 2008, the night Mr Pring died.
She then refused staff offers to call the couple a taxi, before leading Mr Pring down to the nearby main road and helping him over a barrier in an apparent attempt to hail a cab, it has been alleged. He was killed moments later in a hit-and-run, while his wife returned to the restaurant to pick up an item of clothing she had dropped.
Registration plates recovered from the scene matched those belonging to a car stolen from in front of Ms Ziuzina’s apartment the previous day. Phone records also showed she had taken a taxi home after the accident at about 3am, Ukrainain authorities confirmed.
She then travelled to a car breaker’s yard just half a mile from the spot where her husband lost his life, where she stayed for two hours before returning home.
Ms Ziuzina disappeared not long after she returned to the UK to claim her share of her husband’s £1.5million estate, with police saying they believed she was living abroad.
It is thought she received legal aid from the British courts while selling her husband’s Range Rover and property taken from his home in Battersea, south London, and removing money from his bank account.
In an email to Ms Ziuzina which came to light during the inquest, Barry Pring wrote: “My concern is our relationship! All our conversation/emails have always been about the visa/shoes, etc.[...] I do not sense any emotions from you.”
By 2007 Mr Pring had bought Ms Ziuzina two apartments in Kiev, worth a combined £170,000, and given her money to renovate one of them. However, the flat still looks “like a building site”, according to reports.
Mr Pring’s family are said to be considering taking legal action against Ms Ziuzina. A Kiev police spokesman said: “If the UK police forward us any documents or evidence they have, we will consider this new information.”
“No,” Beckham said. “I knew that my dad would always be proud of my achievements, but the only time my dad turned around to me and said, ‘You know what, son, you’ve done really well’ was when I got my 100th cap for England.” He said that conversation had meant the world to him.
Recalling his dad while growing up in east London, the 41-year-old said: “Without a doubt, it was tough love. I remember playing for Ridgeway Rovers on a Sunday morning and if I had a bad game he would tell me, and he would go through every single minute. I was seven. … And I remember turning around to him sometimes and saying, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.’
“But when I look back on it, I think that was how I needed to be taught.”
He added that his father had always loved football – Manchester United were his team – but “when I started playing he gave up playing for a Sunday League team. He gave up for me.”
Beckham also praised his mother, Sandra, a hairdresser, and said his earliest memories are of her ferrying him to football practice.