Is ‘wealthy Lady Kristyna’ really just a fantasist secretary from Melbourne?
SHE is the aristocrat who made the headlines after offering a dream job for any young conservationist – living on her family’s unspoilt South Pacific island for a monthly salary of £3,000.
But anyone enticed by the prospect of an idyllic existence among the seals and seabirds on the Isla Drummond Hay off Chile should be warned that the woman behind it may not be everything she appears to be.
Styling herself Lady Kristyna DrummondHay, she claims to be a scion of one of Scotland’s most ancient aristocratic families.
But this supposed descendant of the 15th Earl of Perthshire has been accused of inventing her illustrious lineage to get a spouse visa to enter Britain from Australia.
Records show there is no such title as the Earl of Perthshire – and although there is an
‘She brought so much trouble, my mother has fallen ill’
Earl of Perth, members of his family are adamant that Kristyna is not a relative.
And, disappointingly for anyone hoping their job application will succeed, the Earl’s family say the Isla Drummond Hay, which lies 1,100 miles south of the Chilean capital of Santiago, does not belong to them.
‘Lady Kristyna’ first made the news last year as a wealthy aristocrat who had married a former farmer after meeting him on a dating app for people who love the countryside called Muddy Matches.
But last night, as their tangled s t ory unfolded, her husband, Michael Lloyd, 34, from Colwyn Bay, North Wales, told The Mail on Sunday that he regrets the marriage. He said: ‘I feel really embarrassed and I feel I can’t trust anyone any more.’
Mr Lloyd, an ex-Royal Engineer who served in Helmand province, Afghanistan, said Kristyna contacted him on Muddy Matches when he was divorcing his first wife, telling him that though she lived in Australia, she belonged to an aristocratic family in Perth.
‘She said she would come to the UK and we could live in her farm in Scotland,’ he said.
But when Kristyna did eventually come to the UK, she mainly stayed at a hotel in Birmingham at his expense and Mr Lloyd said she gave a string of excuses to stop him meeting her British family.
‘I asked if she wanted to see her cousins and she said no because they were working,’ he said. After she returned to Australia, Mr Lloyd visited Kristyna in Melbourne and, within a day, the couple married in an empty hall at the Melbourne Welsh Church. Photos of the wedding show a modest affair, at which two builders signed the marriage certificate as witnesses. On the certificate, her name is ‘ Kristyna Halyburton’, not ‘Drummond-Hay.’
Mr Lloyd returned to the UK after a week due to work commitments, and without seeing Kristyna’s home in Melbourne. Almost immediately, she applied to the Home Office for a spouse visa for Britain.
He said he later found out she was a secretary in a taxi firm. She had told him she was descended from a secret son of the 15th Earl of Perth, William Huntly Drummond, who was born in 1871 and, after marrying a British woman, had been sent to India as an official in the Raj.
There, she claims, the Earl formed a bigamous marriage with another British woman and had a son, Harry Denz i l Dr u mmond- Hay, who Kristyna said was her father.
She said Harry grew up in India and moved to Australia, marrying a woman called Diane Halyburton. But records show Huntly Drummond died childless in 1937, without any hint of secret wives.
When Mr Lloyd confronted his wife about her background, he says she began sending hostile messages to him, his mother and his ex-wife, warning them not to damage her chances of getting a UK visa.
He said he has since had to change his mobile number to stop her ‘stalking’ him, and now believes he was deceived, after spending what he says was at least £10,000 on her in Britain and on the wedding.
Mr Lloyd said: ‘She definitely did this to get a visa. She has brought so much trouble, my mother has fallen ill.’ He is now talking to his solicitor about a divorce. James Strathallan, 53, heir of the current 18th Earl of Perth, said: ‘She certainly has nothing to do with my family. She sounds like a naive fantasist.’ He also said the family do not own Isla Drummond Hay.
The Mail on Sunday tracked down Ms Drummond-Hay’s last-known address to a one-bed rented bungalow in a Melbourne suburb – a far cry from Stobhall Castle in Perth, the 14th Century seat of the Perths, with 23 bedrooms and 196 acres.
Last night, in a telephone call with The Mail on Sunday, Ms Drummond-Hay insisted she is descended from the 15th Earl of Perth. She
‘She married me to get a spouse visa’
said in a statement: ‘Michael is a known liar, cheater. Our marriage ended – and it’s me who is filing for divorce – due to his infidelities.
‘I have not deceived anyone. On the contrary, it is me who has been deceived. I asked Michael to move to Australia several times. If anything, it would be an Australian being used for a visa.’ She also insisted that a branch of her family who lived in the United Arab Emirates, owns Isla Drummond Hay.
Asked by The Mail on Sunday for details, the Chilean Embassy was unable to say even if the island was in private ownership, after a week of searching for the answers.
It is unclear why someone would invite applicants to be paid castaways on the island if they do not own it and do not have access to appropriate funds for the scheme.