Divorce leaves mining tycoon with £5 in bank

A FORMER mining tycoon was left with just £5 in the bank after a 17-year divorce battle.

David Mann, 50, divorced his wife, Shelley, in 1999 when their two daughters were at primary school and agreed a £2 million settlement. He claims he has paid out £1.5 million, but has since become “reliant on the charity” of friends, family and the congregation at his local synagogue and cannot afford the remaining £625,000 he owes despite living in a £90,000-a-year rented flat in Kensington.

At the High Court, Mr Mann told Mrs Justice Roberts he had applied to the council for housing benefit and had less than £5 in his bank account.

Mrs Mann insisted her former husband was hiding a fortune behind an “elaborate facade,” but the judge said she had failed to prove that Mr Mann – who was declared bankrupt in 2004 – would have gone to such lengths to cheat her of her payout. She said, although Mr Mann “has not always behaved honestly” and expressed “sincere sympathy” for his former wife, she would rule he did not have to pay her any more money.

After reading a letter from Mr Mann’s rabbi, backing his claim to be dependent on hand-outs, the judge said: “I can find no reliable evidence of hidden or secret funds belonging to him.”

The court was told the couple married in South Africa in 1988. After divorcing 11 years later, Mr Mann left his wife their family home in Hampstead, north London, but she said her finances went on to reach a state of collapse. Mr Mann said he had last “cut a deal” in the mining industry in 2013 and was effectively ruined.