Ex-wife pleads with judges to end 16-year divorce battle

THE FORMER wife of a millionaire airline pilot locked in Britain’s longest divorce battle has begged senior judges to end a “ghastly” 16-year legal fight.

Viki Maughan, 50, and her former partner, Richard Wilmot, 62, have been at loggerheads over money since they split in 2001.

Mr Wilmot, who has been married four times, has been warned by his lawyers that the case could bankrupt him. He claims Ms Maughan, his third wife, is a “liar” and that a child she claims is his was, in fact, fathered by a lover she was secretly seeing before they divorced.

Mr Wilmot, once a British Airways captain, is “absolutely convinced” he is not the father and has accused his exwife of fabricating evidence to try to extract maintenance payments from him.

Ms Maughan has argued that he needs to “accept reality”.

At the Court of Appeal, she asked judges to order Mr Wilmot to honour their 2001 divorce settlement.

Jonathan Swift, her barrister, told the court: “A significant air of reality needs to descend in this case.” He said his client has a “sincere wish that this court should dispose of this matter with as many restraining directions as possible, so it may never be resurrected again”.

Mr Wilmot was officially declared the father of Ms Maughan’s teenage daughter in 2000 and has paid almost £400,000 in maintenance. But he is now refusing to comply with a financial settlement reached 16 years ago. Judgment has been reserved.