Camilla’s relative blames EU in ‘divorce tourism’ row with wife over £5m family fortune
A RELATIVE of the Duchess of Cornwall has claimed to be ‘the only man in western Europe that isn’t allowed to get divorced’.
Aristocrat Charles Villiers has accused his wife Emma of ‘divorce tourism’ – manipulating the courts in order to gain a larger share of his family fortune.
He blames the EU for the legal tangle. The publishing baron, 55, says Mrs Villiers is ‘trying it on’ by pursuing a financial settlement in England, where the courts are perceived as being more generous to wives, rather than in Scotland, where the couple lived together for nearly two decades and where divorce proceedings were initiated in 2014 following their separation.
Racehorse owner Mr Villiers lost an initial legal bid to stop his estranged wife using English divorce courts in her attempt to gain a larger share of his family fortune and has taken his fight to the Supreme Court.
He says his wife moved from Milton House, their 18th century manor in Milton, Dunbartonshire, to Kensington, West London when their marriage broke down in 2012 after 17 years.
Mr Villiers – who has family links with Camilla through his mother Elizabeth Keppel, daughter of the Duchess’s grandmother Sonia Rosemary Keppel – claims this was an attempt to gain a bigger slice of his £5million family fortune.
Mrs Villiers had insisted that she and their 23-year-old daughter Clarissa need £10,000 a month to live on. In March last year a judge at the High Court in London ruled that Mrs Villiers was ‘habitually resident’ south of the Border and approved a monthly £5,500 interim maintenance payment, pending finalisation of the divorce.
Mr Villiers took the case to the Court of Session, arguing that an English judge had no right to intervene in a Scottish divorce.
He claimed that EU laws on maintenance, which treat England and Scotland as separate states, were to blame for the logjam. But Timothy Scott, QC, for Mrs Villiers, said that it did matter that the divorce was begun in Scotland when it comes to maintenance, adding: ‘As a matter of EU law they have no bearing on each other.’
After having his appeal rejected in June, Mr Villiers has submitted an application to the Supreme Court. He was declared bankrupt in 2013.
Although he was discharged from bankruptcy the following year, the family seat was repossessed in 2015. However, Mrs Villiers’ lawyers claim he is far from penniless and insist he has family money, including a half-share in a £3.5million trust fund inherited from his grandmother.
They say his wealth ‘may be much more’ if a London flat held by a family-controlled company is taken into consideration.
Mrs Villiers is arguing that her husband has the means to provide her demands by tapping into his inherited wealth. But Mr Villiers insists that he has no direct access to the family trust fund – which is controlled by trustees – and has already provided generously for his daughter.
‘I’m a victim,’ he said. ‘My wife has found a loophole that means she can take her claim for more money to England where she hopes to be granted maintenance for life.
‘And while all this is happening my life is on hold. I must be the only man in western Europe that isn’t allowed to get divorced.
‘I want to move on, get remarried and have more children but I can’t because Scottish law states that all financial matters must be resolved before a couple can divorce.
‘That isn’t the case in England. In matters of trade and economy England and Scotland are treated as the same country, but in divorce law they are not. It’s a nonsense.
‘I have found myself in a situation where I can’t get divorced because the law means I have to do it in Scotland because that is where we lived as a couple, but my wife can then use an English court to get more maintenance.’
They separated in 2012 and he launched divorce proceedings in Scotland as Scots law states that all matters of marital separation must be heard in the same country the couple lived. But as Mrs Villiers now lives in England, the law means she is able to apply English law to her divorce.
In her Appeal Court ruling in June, Lady Justice King said the divorce action in Scotland related ‘only to the status’ of Mr and Mrs Villiers as a married couple.
Mrs Villiers had not made a maintenance claim in Scotland and was ‘perfectly entitled to choose’ to do so in England.
Mr Villiers said: ‘I’m confidence that the Supreme Court will get it all straightened out and I hope they send the bill to the EU for tying up the courts in this way.’
Mrs Villiers could not be reached for comment.
‘My life is on hold. It is a nonsense’