Andrew’s ex Koo loses fight for £50k a year for life from old love
KOO STARK has lost a multi-million High Court fight with her financier ex over a promise to support her for life.
The former girlfriend of Prince Andrew had said Warren “Robbie” Walker promised in 1997 to give her £50,000 a year plus household expenses for life.
The US couple had just had a daughter and Ms Stark, 63, claimed he made the promise in return for her giving up plans to write a newspaper column, Diary of a Single Mother.
But Mr Walker, 60, paid her about two years worth of the money before the relationship ended and 20 years later she took him to court.
In a case heard privately in January, Ms Stark told the High Court Mr Walker was in breach of his promise and a later agreement in which he pledged to give her £200,000 to secure a home.
‘Gold-digger’
Mr Walker insisted the agreements were not legally binding and branded Ms Stark a “gold-digger”.
In a public ruling, Judge David Halpern QC said the £50,000-a-year pledge was more likely to have been a non-binding “gentleman’s agreement” between a couple who disagreed on almost everything.
The court heard they met in 1994 and lived together in a mews house in Knightsbridge, west London.
Ms Stark had been an actress and photographer, but more famously an ex of Prince Andrew.
Mr Walker was a financier with a guarded private life.
She said while pregnant in 1996 with their now adult daughter she was having talks with The Times over the single mother column.
It did not happen but while pregnant again in 1997, the idea was raised again, Ms Stark said.
Unhappy with what he saw as the “distasteful and unethical” idea, Mr Walker made his cash promise in a handwritten letter, she said.
It stated he would “guarantee” her the “equivalent of £50,000” a year out of “kindness and love”.
The couple’s relationship broke down in 1999 and a legal battle followed. Ms Stark said that MrWalker repeatedly told her the promise was in return for her abandoning the column idea, it was “as good as a banknote” and he would treat her as a “wife or former wife”.
Ms Stark also claimed the “equivalent of £50,000” meant the amount should rise with inflation. MrWalker said his promise was to give Ms Stark some comfort and to smooth the way for him to continue having access to their daughter. Ruling against Ms Stark, who he said had been “living beyond her means for many years”, Judge Halpern said: “I conclude that it is likely that Mr Walker’s evidence is close to the truth.”