W v W (financial relief consequent)

This judgment was delivered in private. �The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of the judgment the anonymity of the children and members of their family must be strictly preserved. �All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that this condition is strictly complied with. �Failure to do so will be a contempt of court.

Let me set out a little background.� The parties� relationship began in 1992.� They had both been involved with other partners, the husband being divorced from his first wife after a short marriage.� The wife had a son from her previous relationship.� They first began to live together in about 1993 or 1994 at the same time as the husband was starting the business that has provided the source of the parties� support and wealth.

Whilst they lived together as a family, it was the wife who took primary responsibility for the care of the children.� The husband described himself as a workaholic.� In addition to her childcare responsibilities for three children, the wife periodically worked in the business, in particular in the struggle following the financial crash of 2008, so giving her a reasonable working knowledge of the administration side of the business.� The husband has always relied on others for administration and for example, does not know how to operate the computer system that records the business activities.

One advantage of living in a family-owned farmhouse was that there were no costs of acquisition, meaning that more of the income generated by the business could be either reinvested or used to support the parties� lifestyle.�

The first career that the husband had was as an HGV driver.� He then branched out into plant and plant hire, firstly in partnership with somebody else in a business that failed, but in 1993, started a plant hire business operating from the farm.� He continued as an HGV driver whilst sourcing, renovating and hiring out initially tractors and then other items of plant.� To get the business started, he was helped by his father, who put in �10,000 to match the funding put in by the husband.