‘I apologise, Your Honour. What I am trying to show here though is that Grace lied on her Form E. She failed to disclose her car, her horse and her baby grand piano,’ he announced with a flourish, clearly delighted to bring this astounding revelation about my hidden wealth to the attention of the Court. The judge looked at me questioningly with a slightly bored expression. I addressed him directly and contritely.
‘I didn’t lie, sir. The piano was a gift from my parents to me when I was a child. The car and the horse were birthday gifts to me from my husband. I was told by my solicitor that I could omit them, as gifts would remain outside the overall settlement.’
‘So you admit you lied!’ Daniel cut in, leaning forward with his hands on the desk.
‘No, I…,’
‘You lied!’ he shouted again before I could finish.
This was turning into some kind of ridiculous pantomime. What the hell was Daniel trying to prove here? Apart from anything else, the disputed values were totally insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The judge was clearly thinking about getting home at some point that evening and abruptly put a stop to the farce playing out before his eyes.
‘Mr Callaghan, I really don’t think we need to pursue this any further. Mrs Callaghan, he is right that you should, in fact, have declared those assets, so for the sake of all our sanity, I will put a total value on them of fifteen thousand pounds and that’s the end of the discussion.’
I nodded in agreement and attempted to look repentant.
Judge Barraclough did not hide the fact that he was unimpressed by Daniel’s attempts to turn his courtroom into a circus. Over and over again, Daniel insisted on reverting to his arguments about how I had hacked his computer, stolen documents addressed to him, etc, etc. Time and again the judge interrupted him and shut down his line of questioning. After about two hours of the painful and cringe-worthy process, everyone in there was losing the will to live and I was finally released from the witness stand, as the judge announced with a sigh that there would be a short break while he retired to consider the evidence.
I hoped Judge Barraclough had some of the character traits of Santa Claus as well as the appearance.
A judgement
All men are free to choose, but no man is free from the consequences of his choices.
Grace
Judge Barraclough loathed Daniel. That much was obvious. On the flip side, I got the distinct impression that he liked me, or at the very least, sympathised with me. All of that meant nothing in the end though and would have no bearing on his final judgement. It came down to a simple exercise in mathematics.
I realised I was completely drained, both emotionally and physically. For the last two days I had been forced to sit in silence in the courtroom and endure the humiliation of Daniel’s lies. Every aspect of our life together had been picked apart, not just his financial dealings but also the most intimate details of our marriage. I had listened to him telling the judge our marriage had been over for years and that he believed I always knew about his other relationships. He spoke passionately about his love for his two children, stressing his sense of responsibility and how desperately he wanted to be a good father to them and support them. There was no doubt in my mind that he would know just how much it hurt me to hear that, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing it on my face. He laid it on thick about his depression and his psychological issues, which he said had led him to spin his elaborate web of lies. Apparently, he just couldn’t bring himself to hurt anyone, which is how he, unfortunately, ended up with such a collection of women.
Unfortunate indeed. The most unfortunate thing so far as I could see was that Lorraine had blown the whistle a few months too soon for him because before that, he had been well on the way to implementing his creative business plan for securing his own future. He had invested a lot of time and effort into putting everything well and truly out of reach of the grasping fingers of the tax man (and the divorce lawyers), but he had not quite managed to complete it all. I supposed I should really be thanking Lorraine for that.
The American umbrella company, which owned several smaller companies in the UK was based in the state of Delaware, a ‘notoriously sexy location’, as the forensic accountant I went to see described it. When I asked him what that was supposed to mean, he explained that it was practically impossible to get any information about companies or bank accounts out of Delaware. It was the state of choice for anyone wanting to dodge UK taxes, apparently. Nothing actually illegal about it, he had told me with a wry smile, but a business practice generally regarded as sailing very close to the wind. I explained about the cars and bikes that were being imported from the States and Europe, and he nodded his head knowingly, saying it sounded to him like something known as ‘carousel fraud’. A cunning way of avoiding paying tax on the assets apparently, but very difficult to prove, whereby goods are passed around between companies in a similar way to how a carousel revolves. I thought of Daniel’s substantial debt to HMRC and the long string of subsidiary companies he had recently set up. I remembered how he used to brag to our friends that he was able to run rings round the taxman.
I had to hand it to him; Daniel had almost pulled it off. ‘Almost’ being the operative word. Because the whole plan had come to a grinding halt the day Lorraine sent the infamous email.
Not one to be put off or give in easily, for two whole days Daniel looked the judge straight in the eye and stuck to his sob story about no longer owning any of his assets and struggling to make ends meet on his lowly salary from the American company who employed him. He had told the lie for so long and repeated it so many times I was certain he now truly believed it, but I doubted very much the judge did.
It was a long hour before he was ready for us all again and, in spite of my earlier optimism, I found it hard to fight back a sense of impending doom as I re-entered the courtroom to hear the judgement. It felt like everything had been taken out of my hands, as though I was not of sound mind to deal with my own affairs.
We sat obediently in silence, bracing ourselves, as Judge Barraclough looked over the top of his glasses, put his hands on the table either side of his papers and began to speak, in an undisputed tone of authority.
‘This is an application brought by Mrs Grace Callaghan for a financial order arising from the divorce between her and her former husband, Mr Daniel Callaghan. Mr Callaghan has rightly referred to Section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act, which states that it is the duty of the Court to give first consideration to the welfare of minor children of the family.’
He paused and my heart thumped hard in my chest as I began to panic. Daniel was smiling happily and nodding in agreement. He had warned me his kids would take precedence over me. I had to force myself to focus and listen as the judge began to speak again.
‘Well, there are no minor children of the family in this case, although Mr Callaghan has two other children outside the family for whom he clearly has concerns and responsibilities. I am satisfied that Mr Callaghan has sufficient earning capacity and other financial resources to provide for those children. How exactly he does that will be a matter for him moving forward, but it need not impact on my judgement today.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Strike one to me.
Daniel sat up abruptly and began to bluster.
‘What? But I thought you just said…I have to look after my children and that’s not cheap these days.’
‘Mr Callaghan, please do not interrupt me while I am giving my judgement. This is no longer a forum for discussion.’
Daniel shook his head and muttered something under his breath about the whole thing being a joke. Judge Barraclough continued with his less than complimentary analysis of Daniel’s conduct, because of which he intended to draw ‘adverse inferences’. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it didn’t sound particularly good for Daniel.
‘It is correct that there should not be a punitive financial order because of Mr Callaghan’
s conduct in leading a multiple faceted life. However, for pretty much the entirety of his marriage, he has practised a significant deception, maintained households in both this country and in America and has fathered two children to two separate ladies during that period, all to the ignorance of the applicant wife.’
I baulked inwardly at his use of the word ‘ladies’, thinking I would have preferred ‘slappers’, but I made sure my face did not give me away.
‘His conduct gives rise to what I might describe as a credibility issue, in that a man who can practise such successful deception for such a period of time has to have what he says viewed with a degree of circumspection. There are also adverse inferences to be drawn from the fact that more than one domestic establishment has been maintained, to the detriment of the marital establishment with which we are dealing today.’
Daniel appeared to have learned his lesson about interrupting and limited himself to rubbing his hand across his face and sighing loudly. My palms were sweating, but outwardly I fought to maintain a neutral expression of calm serenity, as I held the judge’s gaze and ignored Daniel’s furious glances in my direction.
‘Mr Callaghan wanted to make out in cross-examination that Mrs Callaghan’s Form E was full of deliberate lies. I do not take that view. When you compare her small omissions with what I can only describe as the cavalier attitude that Mr Callaghan has displayed towards his own Form E, then her inadequacies pale into insignificance and I have to say that it is more likely that I am going to believe Mrs Callaghan in this courtroom. Having heard her give evidence and having examined her documentation, I do not believe it is based on ‘Hell having no fury like a woman scorned’. Nor do I regard her as a woman driven by jealousy to exaggerate matters. There were far too many inconsistencies in Mr Callaghan’s evidence, with all of it tainted by a remarkable arrogance. He would try and tell me that this marriage effectively broke up after a couple of years and that therefore what has gone on since is of no great consequence and everybody has been comfortable with the arrangement. That is utter nonsense.’
There were certainly no flies on Judge Barraclough. He was summing up Daniel with alarming accuracy, given the relatively short amount of time he had been given to get to grips with all the complexities of the case.
I dared to see a flicker of hope on the horizon as he continued.
‘It is instructive to read the report, apparently given by Mr Callaghan’s therapist, a certified hypnotherapist and life coach, although there is some doubt surrounding the authenticity of the report. It does, however, sum up how his life has been lived in very clearly defined compartments and it was only when one of those compartments leaked big-time that everything went wrong.’
I lost concentration at that point, hearing only the term life coach. The Whale called herself a life coach. Suddenly it all made sense. Daniel didn’t have a therapist. It was yet another fabrication, cooked up by the two of them to enable him to somehow wriggle off the hook. I half opened my mouth to protest, but instantly closed it again, remembering the judge’s thoughts about interruptions and realising that it made no difference now anyway. I would do better to concentrate on what he was saying.
‘It is unimpressive for a businessman who tells me he is dealing in multi-million-pound contracts with a limited company to be conducting more than one account in either his own name or the name of a girlfriend, in an entirely un-business like way. This conduct is much more consistent with someone trying to confuse anybody who is going to look at their financial affairs than it is consistent with good business practice. It is a highly devious way of conducting business and that deviousness does not stop at the confusion regarding the company Jupiter Holdings. Every time he cannot answer a question he puts it down to Jupiter Holdings, yet I have not been favoured with even the slightest evidence of their existence, let alone any information about the relationship he has with them.’
The judge appeared to be warming to his theme and I lost count of how many times I had heard the word ‘devious’. I was starting to enjoy the entertainment, which was turning out to be a total character assassination of Daniel.
I couldn’t have done better myself.
‘His devious business practices continue with the issue of child support, paid by the company rather than from his own pocket, in the form of wages for the two women who are the mothers of the children concerned. Unimpressive indeed and certainly there is little evidence to support his claims that they carry out any form of proper work for the company, or that it is anything other than a ruse on his part to make the company, rather than him personally, pay for his parental responsibilities. He tells me there are significant financial difficulties yet, as part of the arrogance of his evidence, he says he has a triple-A credit rating and can borrow money very easily. That does not sit well with what he has told me about his general finances or those of the company.’
This was priceless. I tried to take note of the juiciest comments to report back to everyone later, but I was struggling to keep up. The onslaught continued.
‘So far as the cars, bikes and various other things are concerned, I need to make a discreet finding. I regard the bills of sale and all that I have been told about these cars being shifted to Jupiter Holdings or any of Mr Callaghan’s lady friends as just poppycock.’
I sniggered at the word ‘poppycock’, quickly masking it by clearing my throat and looking down.
What a great word that was. I quickly wrote it down on my notepad and double-underlined it to make sure I didn’t forget.
‘I do not regard those bills of sale as in any way reliable. They are at the very least self-serving and if I were pressed, I would say they had been produced for the purpose of these proceedings and no other reason. The monies that are said to have been paid are monies that have come from an account over which Mr Callaghan had complete control. I do not think these assets have gone any way out of his ownership. That is pure fiction. I regard them all as being wholly his property and therefore part of the matrimonial pot.’
Boom!
This was getting better and better. I wondered for a moment whether Daniel had done enough for someone to actually put him behind bars. Everyone said perjury was a serious offence. And I really should make an effort to shop him to HMRC about the ‘carousel fraud’ thing. That would be the icing on the cake.
‘So where do all these failures on Mr Callaghan’s part take us?’ Judge Barraclough continued. ‘The law is quite clear. There is an obligation to disclose. Not only has he failed to disclose, he has made deliberate efforts to cover things up. I am concerned that this is because he thought that what he might get away with by being occasionally disbelieved in a few minor aspects would be less painful than what might be the case if the full and true picture were known. What I have to do is decide on the capital assets more than anything else in this case and how they should be divided in a broadly equal way, being fair to both parties.’
- Whoa, just a minute. Why do we need to be ‘fair’ to Daniel? When was he ever fair to me?
I took a deep breath and tried to take myself mentally to my happy place and remain calm as the judge pressed on.
‘However, I have to err on the side of making sure that the failure to disclose does not produce an injustice to Mrs Callaghan when it is balanced up. Mr Callaghan loves to mix the business and the private, the work with the pleasure and it really makes things very difficult to unravel, but if I err on the side of unfairness it must be on his side rather than on Mrs Callaghan’s side.’
- Ok, that’s more like it.
I relaxed as I heard the judge’s last sentence, breathing a sigh of relief at his comforting words. We were back on track.
Now we were down to the nitty-gritty. Time for the calculations. Maths was never my strong point and I was quickly lost. All I could do was home in on the assets that were being thrown into the pot. They included both houses, all the cars and bikes, the helicopter and the J125 race boat, although Daniel was still insisting that
most of them were ‘owned’ by either the directors of Jupiter or The Whale. Added to that were the sums of money in the numerous bank accounts I had found statements for. The Swan had been left out of the calculations, to my intense irritation, as had the Vettriano paintings, as Daniel vehemently refused to admit he had ever bought them and, despite my best efforts, I had been unable to find a shred of evidence to the contrary. I heard the judge state a final figure of 1.6 million, give or take a few thousand. I was under no illusions that Daniel had a whole lot more stashed away, probably in the States, but I had been advised by the forensic accountant that I would almost certainly never get my hands on it and would run the risk of bankrupting myself in the process of trying. I did not need to be greedy and knew I had to let it go. Half of the sum the judge was quoting would enable me to start again and make a new life for myself, free of financial worries.
I was happy with that, I decided as he continued.
‘However…,’
- Uh-oh. My heart sank.
‘there is also a substantial debt of £690,000 due to the Inland Revenue, which is clearly going to have to be paid. I can only suspect that if he has dealt with HMRC in the same cavalier way as he has dealt with these proceedings, they will have had no hesitation in issuing bigger and bigger penalties. When Mr Callaghan is questioned about the bankruptcy proceedings he answers that he knows nothing about them. Yet we have seen paperwork which gives the exact reference of the accounts. I, therefore, have a debt to take into account which may be about to torpedo a lot of his finances if it indeed leads to bankruptcy. On the other hand, he tells me with a degree of confidence that the debt can be settled for 25 percent. Well, so be it. I will take him at his word and calculate the debt accordingly.’
Twenty Years a Stranger (The Stranger Series Book 1) Page 29