In many ways, the final judgment in the case reads as a useful checklist of behaviour to avoid at court, especially if you choose to dispense with lawyers.
Whilst this article is not intended to be an advert for legal services, it is important to remember that many of those who act in person in court are likely to find themselves up against specialist practitioners who have done the job a thousand times before. Those practitioners will be expert at exploiting any weaknesses they perceive within a case. What follows is a taster of where, arguably, Heather Mills failed to appreciate that fact.
• Lack of Evidence
It seems an obvious point but Heather Mills failed to back up her assertions with evidence. She sought to prove that she was a wealthy woman when she met and married Sir Paul McCartney - this was related to her claim to compensation for loss occasioned by the marital relationship. Heather alleged that she held £2m - £3m in a bank account when she met Sir Paul. She was asked, “repeatedly”, to produce bank statements as evidence. None were provided. In addition, her tax returns for the period just before the couple met up to a couple of months before the marriage did not support the amount of income she claimed to have received during that period. The lack of evidence to back up her case made her look as it she was not telling the truth.
• Contradictory Evidence
Heather Mills argued that there had been a period of pre-marital cohabitation. However in associated children proceedings and in her autobiography she had referred to living separately until their marriage. Further, she maintained that her earning capacity had been stunted as a result of the marriage and the bad press she had received. However, again, her evidence in the children proceedings was that she had turned down many offers of work.
• Exaggeration
During the litigation, Heather Mills referred to herself as Sir Paul McCartney’s, “business partner”. The Judge referred to this claim as, “make-belief”. He also tore apart her allegation that Sir Paul had a fortune of £800m, estimating his wealth to be half that figure instead.
• Inconsistency
Heather Mills stated that the amount of money she needed to spend each year (her annual “budget” in family law terms) was £3.25m. However, in correspondence with Sir Paul and his lawyers, she offered to accept a lump sum of £50m in settlement of her claims, which would equate to an annual spend of £1.5m. The Judge commented that this, “concession…graphically illustrates the sheer unreasonableness of the demand for £3.25m per annum”.
• Spending to suit a budget
The court analysed Heather Mills’ spending during the litigation and concluded that she had been deliberately trying to spend at a level which she considered would support her stated level of needs (i.e. £3.25m per annum) in order to attempt to substantiate her claim for that amount. Much of the spending she alleged was not supported by receipts, particularly in regard to the costs of security. To show its disapproval of this behaviour, the court added back £500,000 in respect of “completely unreasonable expenditure”. Analysis of Heather’s budget highlighted various exorbitant items, for example chartering planes, equestrian activities (she no longer rides) and wine (she does not drink alcohol).
• Appointing the right (or wrong) expert
Both Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills appointed accountants to value Sir Paul McCartney’s business interests. The Court preferred the evidence presented by the extremely experienced accountant for Sir Paul, and the Judge commented that the accountant for Heather Mills “candidly admitted that he had never valued a [music] catalogue”. To be frank, these particular court proceedings were probably not the place to start…
• Distasteful behaviour
There is a telling description of an episode where Heather Mills contacted an executive in Sir Paul’s company requesting a payment of £480,000 to settle four mortgages secured against a property in her sole name. During cross-examination, Heather Mills accepted that the property, in fact, never had a mortgage secured on it. The Judge did not go as far as describing this as fraudulent behaviour but he did comment that the behaviour was, “distinctly distasteful”. Certainly, it affected her credibility.
Of course one can never know whether, and to what extent, these factors decreased the level of settlement granted to Heather Mills. What is clear is that she was a litigant who did little to impress the court. Indeed, the judge commented that, “this case is a paradigm example of an Applicant failing to put a rational logical case”. Regarding the award’s impact on her general expenditure, the judge commented that, “if the Wife feels aggrieved about what I propose she only has herself to blame”.
In many respects, the case made by Heather Mills does not appear to have been particularly well thought out. One is left wondering whether she picked up a family law textbook and a copy of the 2006 Miller/McFarlane House of Lords case and simply constructed her case around the concepts contained within. For example, her argument that there had been a period of pre-marital cohabitation, did appear to be a text-book approach to increasing her award: longer-married wives tend to get more money. The court held that this argument was not substantiated by fact or, indeed, by Heather Mills’ own evidence in the separate court proceedings about the parties’ daughter.
Of course, Heather Mills may have been her own worst enemy; many people who choose to represent themselves stick more closely to the facts and do not fall into the traps outlined above. However, part of a lawyer’s job is to knock their opponent’s credibility. It does seem that Heather Mills may have presented quite an easy target in this regard.
It should be said that only the judgment is available rather than the full transcript of the final hearing, which Heather did try to get released on the basis that it would exonerate her. Indeed, this may be the case; although her application was refused, and we will never know. Bearing the above points in mind, it seems unlikely.
Katharine Vigus