Billionaire’s son brands ex a ‘drug addict and drunk’ in bitter Belize custody battle
After she shot dead policeman pal in ‘late-night accident’...
THE son of Tory grandee Lord Ashcroft branded his socialite former partner a drunk and a drug addict as he launched a legal bid for custody of their two children in Belize. Andrew Ashcroft accused Jasmine Hartin of being unfit to care for twins Charlie and Ellie, four, after her arrest over the fatal shooting of a police chief in May. In court papers that set up a potentially bitter battle, hotelier Mr Ashcroft, 43, accused his estranged partner of ‘immoral habits’ and regularly abandoning the children – claims she emphatically denied last night. The youngest son of the billionaire peer wrote: ‘The mother of the children hardly spends any time with the children. She is frequently more than not leaving the children in the care of others. ‘Her main occupation is attending and socialising and she is addicted to non-prescribed and illegal drugs and is a habitual drunkard. ‘The mother of the children is also presently charged with serious offences; causing death of a police officer by negligence, as well as assault of a person, while out on bail.’ The application filed in the town of San Pedro, obtained by Mail Online, continues: ‘The mother is by reason of intemperate or immoral habits (drunkenness and drug addiction) or for any other reason, unfit to have custody of the children. The mother does not exercise proper care and control of the said children.’ Miss Hartin, a Canadian expat who moved to Central America seven years ago, is currently on bail over the shooting of Superintendent Henry Jemmott, a family friend, on a beachside dock in the early hours of May 28. She claims his death was an accident when his service weapon, which she was practising holding, went off. Last night she dismissed the claims in the court summons as ‘bogus’. Miss Hartin said Mr Ashcroft has blocked her from seeing the twins without any court order or lawful authorisation. She also accused him of taking them out of Belize without her permission. ‘When Andrew obviously caught wind that I was doing this, all of a sudden I get served with a custody paper and it’s all bogus what he’s accusing me of,’ she added.
‘He says that I’m never around the kids but I’ve been trying to be around the kids and I have video evidence showing that he’s been refusing me access to them.’
A drug test carried out this week for a variety of illegal substances, including cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine and marijuana, came back negative, she said.
‘As soon as I take one step to get my kids back he attacks me and he’s coming out with false allegations,’ Miss Hartin said.
The controversy around Mr Jemmott’s death was making it hard for her to find a family lawyer willing to represent her, she added.
Miss Hartin said: ‘I’m playing an unfair game. They are able to do whatever they want while I’m tied up in red tape.’
The former ‘lifestyle director’ and Mr Ashcroft had previously enjoyed a jet-set lifestyle operating a string of luxurious resorts in Ambergris Caye, a tropical island haven for rich expats off the eastern coast of Belize.
That came to an end when Mr Jemmott, a father-of-five tipped as a future leader of his country’s police force, was struck behind his right ear by a 9mm round from his Glock 17 service pistol.
According to a criminal complaint, he had been ‘socialising’ and drinking alone with Miss Hartin on a secluded hotel pier one block from the upmarket Alaia Belize hotel, which she operated with Mr Ashcroft.
Police found Miss Hartin ‘covered in red substance as that of blood’, with Mr Jemmott floating dead on his back 30ft from the shore.
After a weekend behind bars, Miss Hartin gave a statement saying the off-duty officer was showing her how to handle his firearm as the pair drank and it went off as she passed it back to him.
The custody case will be heard in court later this month.