Make-believe… devoid of reality… judge delivers verdict on Heather Mills

SHE may have walked away with millions of pounds, but any remaining shred of credibility Heather Mills had left was destroyed by a ruling published by the judge presiding over her divorce yesterday.

Berating her as a "less than impressive witness", in the damning 58-page report, Mr Justice Bennett said Mills "wholly exaggerated" the extent of her wealth before she met her now ex-husband.

Mr Bennett said Mills, a 40-year-old former model, had lost her sense of reality when she married Sir Paul and said much of her evidence was "not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid."

He described her claims as "make-believe", "wholly exaggerated" and "warped" and branded her original demand as "unreasonable, indeed exorbitant."

Ms Mills was awarded £24.3 million on Monday for their four-year marriage. But the ruling was only released in full yesterday after Miss Mills lost a Court of Appeal application to have the judgment kept out of the public eye claiming it compromised their daughter Beatrice's privacy.

The contents of the ruling paint a relentlessly unflattering picture of Mills as somebody who repeatedly overstated and exaggerated her career, financial position and role in her estranged husband's life.

In contrast, he described the former Beatle's evidence as balanced and said he "expressed himself moderately, though at times with justifiable irritation, if not anger."

Mr Justice Barrett said of Mills: "The wife for her part must have felt rather swept off her feet by a man as famous as the husband. I think this may well have warped her perception leading her to indulge in make-believe".

Financially, she claimed to have personally owned several properties and prior to her marriage had a fortune of close to £3 million.

But the judge stated that he could not accept this as there was a "lack of any documentary evidence to support her case" and concluded that her claims were "wholly exaggerated".

He also made reference to an incident when Mills attempted to gain money in 2005 from McCartney by asking him to give her money to pay off a nonexistent mortgage on a property.

Unconvinced by her protests that it was a misunderstanding, he described Mills' behaviour as "underhand" and "distinctly distasteful".

Excerpts of Mills' written submissions to the court alleged that McCartney had sought to stifle her career: "Countless lucrative business opportunities were made to me once Paul and I married.

"Sadly, Paul advised against 99 per cent of all of them. He stated that they were only interested in me because of his name and that I should just stick to charity work and he would take care of me."

However, the judge dismissed her claims, pointing out that there was strong evidence McCartney had been "supportive of, or furthered" her career.

He was scathing of her assertion that during their marriage she had been McCartney's "full- time wife, mother, lover, confidante, business partner and psychologist".

He said that any suggestion that she was his business partner was "typical of her make- believe" and "devoid of reality".

Referring to the unravelling of the relationship from their first meeting in 1999, the judge said there was "considerable volatility," adding: "There were good times, there were bad times, and the relationship always left in the husband's mind a question whether he and the wife were going to be ultimately right for each other."

The judge accepted that since April 2006, Mills had had a bad press: "She is entitled to feel that she has been ridiculed, even vilified." But he added: "To some extent she is her own worst enemy. She has an explosive and volatile character."

In his justification for awarding her £24.3 million, Mr Justice Barrett said that the needs of the wife were of "magnetic importance". But his comments ultimately vindicate Sir Paul, who will pay his ex-wife only a fifth of the £125 million she had originally demanded.

CAN'T BUY ME LOVE

In the judgment, Mr Justice Bennett set out Paul McCartney's assets, liabilities and income:

Property holdings £33.979m
Bank accounts £15.159m
Investments £34.319m
Cash £6,000
Paintings, instruments, furniture, cars and horses £32.269m
Tax liabilities £9.615m
Business interests£240.920m
Pension assets £36.288m
Money owed to him £3.687m
Total net assets £387.012m
Total net income for the next 12 months £5.357m

COMMENT

It's time to stop defending the indefensible and recognise Mills is a hopeless mess

EMMA COWING

I GIVE up. I've tried flying the flag for Heather Mills, really I have. I've defended her attitude, her dress sense, the impossibility of her situation in being a stepmother to recalcitrant grown-up children. I even wrote a piece not so long ago advising her – for her own sake more than anyone else's – to stop talking to the media and keep quiet. But after this week's revelations? I wash my hands of her.

Sir Paul McCartney was right, of course. Leaving court on Monday his only comment to the press was "all will be revealed". And oh, how it was. Leafing through the 58-page judgment was like reading The Ladybird Guide to Becoming a Gold Digger – a term, by the way, I have so far tried to avoid using to describe her. Yet here it all was, laid bare. How she felt entitled to live in a world of private jets and first-class travel; that she had lied about her mortgage repayments; that she believed their relationship had led to a loss of earnings which she felt she should be compensated for.

And then the final low blow – launching a public physical attack on another woman – McCartney's lawyer, Fiona Shackleton – whom she poured a glass of water over.

Mills has behaved atrociously. Not so much like a woman scorned, but like a woman trying to wreak a terrible revenge on a man whose worst crime was to marry someone he misjudged dreadfully. Mills has been given many unflattering names over the years but the judge stumbled upon the one that many women who once tried to defend her, who now shake their heads in horror, will agree with. She is her own worst enemy.