Divorcing? Don’t open ex’s post... you may go to jail

COUPLES getting divorced are risking jail by opening each other’s post or spying on emails, lawyers warned yesterday.

They said one in five husbands and wives admit using methods such as logging on to the other’s computer or bugging to find evidence of hidden wealth, which could win them a bigger share of the spoils in court.

Divorcees sometimes get away with it because judges usually only question the source of the information if a settlement is contested, the report from Hall Brown family law firm said.

But anyone caught spying or intercepting post risks a muchreduced payoff or, in the worst case, a two-year jail sentence under the Investigatory Powers Act. Lawyer Laura Guillon said: ‘In just over 20 per cent of all the cases that we deal with, clients admit opening their partner’s mail, logging on to their computer or rifling through business files left in the attic of the marital home while searching for details which they feel might help their case on divorce. Invariably, they profess ignorance when we point out that they are not allowed to do anything of the sort.’

She added: ‘ Some will even express amazement that it is not permitted. In their minds, they are doing nothing wrong by opening post which has been delivered to their home, including items that they may have opened prior to their separation.

‘We have to remind them in the strongest terms that documentation which they uncover has to be sent to their spouse, cannot be seen by us and cannot be copied.’ For nearly 20 years divorce courts did allow use of confidential information or documents taken without a spouse’s knowledge.

The ‘Hildebrand rules’, named after a divorce in 1992 that set the precedent, drew the line only at documents stolen by force or illegally intercepted but the rules swept away in 2010. Miss Guillon said yesterday that if a wife or husband behaves lawfully and avoids spying ‘the duty is then on the other spouse to disclose that information in the proper way’.

She added: ‘That individuals going through a divorce are still engaging in activity which was outlawed seven years ago and could even see them jailed is, I believe, a real cause for concern.’

Former breakfast TV presenter Anthea Turner is one of the bestknown divorcees to have turned to spying to on her husband as their marriage broke up.

In her book How To Survive Divorce, to be published next month, she explains how in 2013 she acted on her suspicion that husband Grant Bovey was cheating on her.

Miss Turner wrote: ‘I became a regular Miss Marple, logging on to the computer to check journeys he made, credit cards he’d used and text messages he’d sent.

‘Grant had no idea I could even do these things. As far as he was concerned, I was a technophobe, unable to carry out the simplest tasks on a computer.’