Thread: Millionaire sues ex-wife for paternity fraud

From The Daily Mail:

Millionaire sues ex-wife for £300,000 over claim she deceived him into raising her lover's two children

A millionaire businessman is suing his ex-wife for £300,000 after he discovered that two of their three children were fathered by another man.

The man only learned the truth more than 10 years later long after the couple divorced and his wife married the youngsters' real father.

The tycoon, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is now demanding unlimited damages of more than £300,000 from his ex-wife and her new husband. In a bizarre twist, he is also a millionaire businessman.

The pair are accused of fraudulent misrepresentation and deceit by allowing the father to carry on paying maintenance for children who were not his.

The couple were married for 11 years from 1986, but DNA tests on two of their three children later proved they shared a different father.

The businessman claims that the only child he is confident he fathered is their eldest, who was born three years into their disastrous marriage.

He belatedly learned that his wife began a sexual affair with the second man just a few months after she became a mother, according to the writ.

The document further claims the true father of the children was a frequent visitor to the couple's home, even though he was also married at the time.

The lover is also said to have boasted to staff at his work premises that he had fathered one of the children.

According to the papers, the wife confessed to the affair during a holiday in 1997 and the couple split.

But the businessman insists he made 'significant financial provision' for her.

He only learned the children were not his in 2007 when a letter from her lawyer arrived, detailing the results of a DNA test.

The man has not seen his children since.

The High Court documents claim she sent birthday and Christmas cards from her second child to her husband, calling him 'Daddy' until the child was old enough to make and write cards himself.

The cuckolded husband claimed he had no reason to doubt that the babies were his natural children, but that she knew they were fathered by her lover.

She and her lover resolved between them to claim the two younger babies were the millionaire's natural children, and were involved in a joint enterprise to decide him over paternity.

They also induced him to accept paternal and financial responsibility for them as his children, the writ claims.

They did nothing to dispel his erroneous belief about the two children's paternity the writ alleges.

The writ details a series of questions apparently asked by the woman's lover at a New Year’s Eve party in 1994, including: 'Where does your second son get his lovely curly hair from? Yours and your wife's is so straight.'

In August 1995 the tycoon's wife carried out a pregnancy test in front of her husband, and told him he was going to be a father again.

Her daughter was born in 1996 and her husband was registered as her father.

In 1997 three employees commented on the uncanny resemblance of the tycoon's daughter to a child born to his business associate - the man alleged to be having an affair with his wife.

The man is said to have told one employee that the child was his daughter.

The employee passed the informtaion onto another colleague, but neither of them spoke of the matter for fear of losing their jobs.

The lover even sent a card and flowers to the couple congratulating them on the birth of their child.

The millionaire says he supported his ex-wife's second and third children as his own from the time they were born until 2007.

In 1997 she informed her husband that she was having an affair with his business associate during a family holiday - but insisted it had began after the birth of her daughter, the writ says.

She later admitted the affair had lasted several years, but reassured her husband that the three children were his.

The tycoon says he confronted his rival after returning from his holiday and within months entered into a deed of separation from his wife, sharing the children on a rolling four days each basis for eight years.

In 2003 he married the children's nanny and fathered two more sons with her.

His former wife's lover divorced his partner in 2001 and the pair were married a year later.

The two families continued to share the children until the millionaire's ex-wife arranged for DNA testing on her two younger children without her former husband's knowledge, the writ says.

The blonde and her new husband took the two children on holiday abroad in July 2006 and have refused to allow the millionaire to speak to them or see them since.

He discovered that he was not their natural father in a bombshell letter from his ex-wife's solicitors, which left him in shock, and caused him severe distress.

Later court ordered DNA testing showed that his former business associate was 5.5 million times more likely to be the boy's father and 21 million times more likely to be the girl's parent.

The spurned tycoon says he has suffered the cost of financially supporting the two children between their birth and July 2007 which should have been borne by his ex-wife and her new husband and he is seeking damages for deceit.