Trapped in Mauritius, hedge fund boss’s ex in bitter feud over a £90 coffee machine
THE former partner of one of Britain’s wealthiest men claims she is trapped on Mauritius over a bitter dispute about belongings she allegedly ‘stole’ from the villa they once shared.
Teresa de Freitas, 47, has been charged with stealing items including £220 of White Company bedding, a £90 Nespresso coffee machine and a Black & Decker drill after she and Terry Smith split in 2020.
She denies the claim by fund manager Mr Smith, 68, who has an estimated fortune of £300million, and complained it was preventing her from leaving the Indian Ocean island to visit her terminally ill father.
‘It is like your basic right as a human being is taken away from you. It is depraved in a way. It is
‘Stole truckloads of my belongings’
wrong,’ she said. ‘I am supposed to have stolen a Nespresso machine and I can’t go and see my dying father? How can you do this to a woman in the 21st century?’
The squabble is the latest salvo in an increasingly heated battle between the pair, who are embroiled in 22 civil and criminal disputes which began with a continuing custody battle over Miss de Freitas’ daughter from a previous relationship.
Mr Smith insists he has treated the girl as ‘my own’ and was forced to initiate proceedings after his former partner ‘cut access to the child without warning or explanation’.
He claims Miss de Freitas took ‘truckloads of my belongings’ from the villa after their 13-year relationship ended in May 2020. She argues she owned many of the items but has returned them anyway. East End-born Mr Smith, the boss of Fundsmith, the UK’s largest stockfocused investment fund, has also accused his ex of embezzling significant sums – money she insists was in a joint bank account.
Miss de Freitas went to court on Friday asking to be allowed to travel the 6,000 miles from Mauritius to Madeira, where her father John Simon, 81, is receiving palliative care for pancreatic cancer. ‘It is this idea that you are trapped on a tiny island where leaving illegally has longterm consequences,’ Miss de Freitas told the Sunday Times.
Referring to the items she is alleged to have stolen, she added: ‘I didn’t confess to stealing them because I have produced receipts for the majority of the items.
‘I returned the items as a gesture of goodwill and I didn’t want them in my house as a reminder of this terrible situation.’ Another court hearing will take place today and Miss de Freitas, a company secretary, has already booked a flight for this evening in the hope she will be allowed to go.
Mr Smith, who earned £29.7million last year, said in a statement that his ex had ‘grossly misrepresented the situation’. He added: ‘She surely can see a justification for her arrest since she stole truckloads of my belongings, to which she confessed. If this is now causing her difficulties, perhaps she should consider her own actions as the source of the problem, not mine.’
After Mr Smith moved out of the home they shared, Miss de Freitas lived there with a new boyfriend until last February. The alleged thefts took place two months later.