Millionaires' Ex-Wives Club

This programme contains some strong language.

London - known as the divorce capital of the world.

It's the battleground for the mega-rich when dividing up their millions.

There is nowhere that a wife is going to do better than in London.

The Mecca for women wanting to get divorced.

Oh, thank you.

It seems the bigger the money, the bigger the war.

There was so much acrimony.

All the anger and...raised all the hatred...

..all at the same time.

So, you know, this side of the power was fighting that side of the power.

We were like... punching at each other.

-As usual, you think you're so

-BLEEP

-clever.

You haven't even let me finish.

Pay the 30 million

from one of your offshore accounts and then we can move on.

The rows have been fuelled by a change in the law.

Now the starting point in court is a 50/50 split,

and wives are entitled to millions more than ever before.

I've yet to meet a man who isn't astonished that he has

to part with half of his wealth, and it's brutal.

You say to your client, "Look, there are various things you can do,

"but I don't recommend it - they're not necessarily legal.

"If you get found out, you're in trouble."

It incentivises men to hide, but it also incentivises women to find.

Women have become amateur sleuths.

It's very hard to resist checking phones,

very hard to resist checking on the computer.

I wanted to find out, are these women just out for every million they can get,

or are they simply fighting for what's rightfully theirs?

The future ex-wives of the super-wealthy are portrayed

as gold-diggers.

We love to do that in Britain.

Rather than thinking, "Well, she was married to him for an awfully long time.

"Those maybe were the best years of her life.

"Why should she go quietly with crumbs?"

A palace is very hard to give up.

Who said I've given up?

This isn't over yet.

# Hey, little girl

# Comb your hair, fix your make-up

-# Soon he will open your door... #

-Hello.

-Shall we go up?

-Yes, please.

-She's in the sitting room, is she?

I've been invited to the Mayfair home of a multi-millionairess.

She was already incredibly wealthy when she got married

but still fought her husband for millions more when they divorced.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Oh, you're filming coming in.

-Hi, honey.

-Morning, morning.

-How are you?

-I'm all right. How are you?

I'm good. I'm having a Bulletproof Coffee.

-A Bulletproof Coffee?

-Yeah, with Brain Octane.

-Do you want some? Do you want to try it?

-Yeah.

-It's a special oil that goes in it.

-OK, OK.

-What's that going to do to us?

-Make you very clever for the day.

-Would you like one as well?

-Please.

-Yeah.

Tikki, can I have two Bulletproof Coffees, please?

Lisa Tchenguiz is 51 and she's been divorced twice.

Gary Davis was the Radio 1 heart-throb of the '80s.

They were married for six years.

A very, very nice man.

We're still friends, which is great.

With Gary, it was an amicable split,

but with her second husband it's been a different story.

# Let there be you... #

My husband was Vivian Imerman.

He was dubbed "the Man From Del Monte".

He had a juice business.

-He made his fortune that way?

-Yeah. And a second fortune later on.

I guess, at that time in my life,

where there was that sense of insecurity,

I just felt there was a cushion and like a warm blanket.

He was a protector, a big guy.

Strong in the beginning. He was powerful.

-That's very attractive.

-It's... I mean, yeah.

I married him because I liked him, I loved him.

# Let there be love... #

Lisa and Vivian were married for nine years

and they have a 15-year-old daughter together.

When you have a strong woman behind you,

of course I believe that that does take you forward.

He was successful, clearly, in his own right,

but he would never have done what he did had I not been in the picture.

He might have done something else with another woman.

You were here supporting him at heart?

I was absolutely supporting him at heart...

..and raised a beautiful child.

I was the wife that I know all my friends are.

You raise your kids, you create a home, you...you create...

..you keep the family united, you do your Friday night dinners.

You marry for love. I've always said that.

But marry a man that can give you the life you want as well.

It's a bit naive to say marry the local plumber

cos he'll make you happy

but then, if you're used to a lifestyle, what are you going to do?

-So...

-That was never going to work for you?

-No, no.

I never even considered that. I came from a wealthy background.

My family always looked after me.

Firmino, how far are you?

In ten minutes? We'll go in the car in ten minutes.

OK, bye.

-You have a driver?

-Yes.

Yeah. And is he a full-time driver or..?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. And what other staff do you have?

I have my housekeeper.

I have two housekeepers.

I redid the whole house,

but I think we're going to redo everything again now.

It's been a good 15 years.

I think we're going to knock everything...start again.

-That's very sweet.

-It's for George.

-George?

-George, the dog.

-DOG BARKS

-Who's that, who's that?

He's the most spoiled dog ever.

He's so sweet. He's very cute.

I bought him in St Tropez.

Can you sit? Sit.

Sit. Good boy.

-Hey...

-If you have wealth

and you have money, what is there to be unhappy about?

Life is more comfortable, I'm sure.

I'd rather have money and be sad than no money and be sad.

-Hey, relax.

-DOG BARKS

But the world of power and wealth comes with a lot of issues with it.

-Have you got everything, Lynn?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. Come...

I have so many girlfriends going through divorces now.

One of my friends,

her husband went back to an ex-mistress of his

from 15 years ago.

He's not talking to his wife any more and they were married 27 years.

This is the life, this is what's happening in our world today.

-Tikki?

-Yeah?

-Honey, can you put this in a bag for me?

Put that in a bag for me.

-Put it in the shopping bag?

-Yeah, yeah.

Money can give you comfort, it can give you warmth.

Does it magically take away the pain? Absolutely not.

The only thing that it could do for me was allow me

a fair chance at divorce.

Let's try.

Lisa was able to fight because she had her own money

and could pay the legal fees herself.

When there are millions or even billions of pounds at stake,

the rich turn to an elite set of London divorce lawyers.

These solicitors can charge up to £900 an hour.

Jeremy Levison has spent 30 years in the business.

He represents millionaires and billionaires,

both husbands and wives.

His success means he's been able

to indulge his passion for art.

OK, so this, as an art lover,

is work that I commissioned from the lady who's now my fiancee -

Katherine Jackson.

As you go round the board,

you'll see that the man is stuck

on Mayfair,

which has now become My Affair,

in his Aston Martin.

The girl is on Go To Court

with her iron with the spikes in the bottom.

Significantly, the men seem to have all the money.

HE SIGHS

Yes. Still today that is generally the case.

And what about our poor woman down here?

At the moment, she's not got a great deal of money

and this is not untypical.

And she's aiming for her slice of everything that's up here.

The law changed radically in 2000.

Now, of course, she's likely to end up with up to half of it.

The starting point is 50% of what we call the marital acquest.

In other words, you add up what you started the marriage with,

you add up what you finish with and you divide the spoils by two.

If there's a billion has been acquired

in the course of the marriage she had a good claim for half a billion.

I've yet to sit down

with a male client who isn't astonished that he has to part with

half of his wealth, and it's brutal.

Such a bitter pill to swallow.

It goes down like a bowl of cat sick, to be honest.

You've got to have quite a thick skin

because sometimes you'll be sworn at, you'll be shouted at,

you'll be told it's outrageous,

it's bloody unfair or worse.

And you have to let the clients have their mad half-hour

to get it off their chest because it's a difficult message to absorb.

Ultimately, it's about a view generally in society that

marriage should be an equal partnership.

But if you've been in a long marriage,

you've each contributed your bit,

then it has been a partnership of equals

and, actually, what's the problem about a 50/50 split?

Michelle Young had a husband who obstructed her

and the court at every turn.

Scot Young made his first millions in the '80s property boom,

but his real fortune came from brokering deals

with Russian oligarchs.

Young v Young is the longest-running divorce case

in British legal history.

65 court hearings, 13 sets of lawyers...

..and it's still going on now.

I'd given up my career -

I don't regret it because I've got my two beautiful daughters -

and devoted 18 years of my life to him.

Scot and Michelle were in their early 20s when they met,

and first of all lived with Michelle's parents.

He was pretty determined.

He wanted to get married

and have babies and the whole thing.

He was very persuasive.

That's when we actually got married at Chelsea Registry Office.

I mean, how did you feel about him?

Well, I married him, I loved him.

That's usually what happens, isn't it?

He had lots of charisma, very charming.

He was extremely generous to me.

And for my 40th birthday he filled the Range Rover up

with beautiful designer clothes

and lovely jewellery.

We actually had a very privileged lifestyle.

And... But it did come from hard work.

It's not people, you know...

I think they think, "Oh, God," you know,

when people have got all this money, you know.

"They're very privileged."

And, you know, both of us had come from families where, you know,

we had to work hard to succeed.

The Youngs had certainly come a long way -

Scot was from a working-class family

and he grew up in a Dundee tenement block.

This was my former home for five years.

This is very hard because this is the first time I've been back

to this house since we sold it in 2001.

So...

-Hi.

-What did you have here in the way of staff?

We had a cook and...

..a butler. There was a handyman.

And then we had a couple of other housekeepers,

two gardeners.

This is the main driveway here, which... It starts at the top there.

We used to have many cars sitting on the driveway -

Ferraris, Bentleys, Phantoms, Porsches.

Mr Young had a different car for each day of the week.

-Mr Young?

-Yeah.

You don't call him Scot any more?

It's very hard to refer to someone by their first name,

someone that you gave so much to, and then they betray you.

It's very difficult.

What I find hard looking at this today is that...

..you know, not only my ex-husband,

but he was the father of my two girls.

Why he did this I don't understand.

It's complete betrayal.

What do you miss about being here?

Everything.

I used to wake up every day and feel very privileged, you know,

to wake up here because it was a wonderful house.

Happy memories of my daughters

running around, playing with the animals.

And we used to go and pick strawberries in the garden.

You know, it's very hard.

SHE SOBS

It's memories that I kind of parked.

It's very hard to give up.

Who said I've given up?

This isn't over yet.

Fenchurch Street Station has become Feel Hurt Station.

Trafalgar Square - Tragedy Square.

In the very big money cases,

the ladies have been used to spending vast sums of money.

I mean, budgets of £150,000 a year for handbags is not unknown

or even that uncommon.

If you're renting a big boat, it can cost you £500,000 a week,

and two weeks' holiday is £1 million.

They want to maintain their lifestyle

and the legal system supports them. And, indeed, the law says

that, insofar as is achievable,

that is...the lifestyle should be respected.

Everybody always, I think, aspires to having more.

I doubt that most people want to have 100 times more,

but very often you think that you'd be happier with that bit more,

and if that happens to be a bit more between 50 and 55 million,

then you might just want your divorce lawyer to go for

the extra five million. Is it going to make you happier? I don't know.

I've been here for - God knows - 15 years.

So this was your matrimonial home?

This was my home? No.

My father gifted me this house, and my husband lived here with me.

-So it's always been yours?

-It's always been mine, thank God.

You know, at least my lifestyle didn't change.

-Your lifestyle hasn't changed since divorce?

-No. No, no.

I mean, at all?

Um, well, I used to have my own boat and now I don't, which is fine.

It's not the end of the world.

It's a very spoilt thing to say, but..

What sort of boat was it?

-I mean, a yacht?

-A yacht, yeah, yeah.

For Lisa, the real issue was that after nine years of marriage

and having a child together she wanted a 50/50 split.

After all, her husband had made £250 million during the marriage.

So she asked for 120 million,

though his first offer was for two million.

Lisa decided to fight.

The story about the Man from Del Monte, that everybody knows,

-is that the Man from Del Monte says yes.

-Yes.

Yeah. It was pre my era. It wasn't part of my era.

But Vivian didn't say yes to what you wanted, though.

No, clearly not.

No.

I had communicated what I wanted through some common friends,

and that would have sealed it years and years before.

For Michelle, the divorce has meant radically downsizing.

DOG BARKS

She's gone from her mansion to a basement flat.

Good morning.

Guys, do you mind taking your shoes off before we start?

Um... Sorry, we've just recently moved in,

so it's quite chaotic still.

DOG BARKS

My daughter's kindly offered to put a little bit of make-up on

-because I almost work 24/7...

-DOORBELL

..so... She does not want to be filmed, so can we cut here?

The flat is shared with one of her grown-up daughters.

They live among the remnants of their former life.

I mean, obviously, your lifestyle, Michelle,

has changed radically in ten years, hasn't it?

Well, yes, it has.

What did you end up with?

Zero.

The judgment order

that I received in November, 2013,

was an empty paper bag because...

I didn't... I've never received a penny.

And how much was it supposed to be?

For 26.6 million.

Despite the court order, Michelle's husband simply never paid up.

And then there were Michelle's legal fees.

She'd taken out high-interest loans to pay for the years of litigation.

How much do you think you ended up spending on fees?

It was over six million in hard cash

and...

..ten million was on...

..the interest charged.

So you're speaking about 16 million.

In fact, it was nearly £17 million.

So you ended up with debts of 17 million?

Of 17 million. Yes.

Michelle had been banking on the divorce settlement

paying off the loans. She's now bankrupt.

I wanted to know why she was still pursuing the money.

-The fact is that it's ten years now, isn't it...

-Yes.

-..since you first filed for divorce?

-Correct, yeah.

You still seem to be on the case, battling.

Battling? It's a very big bad battle.

It's a war, in fact.

Most people would have given up by now trying to find money.

Absolutely not.

It's never entered my mind.

It's not even a discussion.

Careful. Thank you.

Let's go to near Claridge's, you know.

-The store?

-Yeah, yeah.

I grew up in Iran. Er...

Born in Tehran.

My father was the Royal Minter to the Shah of Iran

and...

A wealthy man?

Yeah, he made... He was a self-made man, yeah.

My dad was very Middle Eastern in his belief

that men did what they wanted

and women had to sort of be quiet and be unseen at home.

And he expected me to go get married, have your children,

don't say much.

-So that was the standard of expectation?

-Yeah.

Is that really what you set yourself, though, as well?

No, no. I mean, I didn't know what I wanted, to be honest,

I really didn't know. And I wish I had had chosen the path of a career.

You were always supported and protected by your family.

-Always, always.

-Or your husband.

-Yeah.

-You've been in a bit of a bubble.

-Yeah.

I mean, one that I recognised as a bubble.

-The thing is, it made you dependent on the men.

-Um...

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I tell you,

I gained my independence for the first time post my divorce.

Really. I started developing my own interest in investments.

I've learnt a lot.

I'm surprised at myself at how quickly I learnt it.

Lisa now has a number of business ventures

in the world of feature films, fashion and food.

-So this is a lunch with friends?

-This is a girlfriend of mine, yeah.

I mean, I haven't seen her for a while, so...

-Do you normally go out for lunch?

-I go for lunch every day.

Every day. It's either a meeting lunch or a social lunch,

but every day. I've got to eat, so I might as well go out.

These women might have spent half their life supporting these men.

There isn't the financial imperative for them to have to work

because there's so much money around.

The husband will, in those circumstances, expect his house

to be run impeccably,

to provide, effectively, the scratching post sometimes

for the husband who will come home in the evening and download

what a terrible day he's had or how stressful it is,

and to make sure that the domestic arrangements

that he hasn't got time to organise are all pukka.

If you're a woman that got married when you were in your mid-20s

and you've never got a job and you've never earnt a pay cheque

and your husband doesn't want to be married to you any more, for whatever reason that might be,

and he doesn't have to come up with a good reason, he just has to tell you

that he doesn't want to be married to you any more,

I mean, I think that's probably enough to induce panic, blind panic.

Because what will their purpose be? How will they be defined?

They are not someone's wife any more.

My fear of failing... Second-time marriage, Middle Eastern woman.

Should have been married once and lived happily ever after.

I was pretending things were OK, and they weren't,

so that pressure was very tough.

When did you realise that he had fallen in love with someone else?

When I hired a detective.

There were three people in the marriage at all times,

and his ex-wife was...

She was there.

Vivian said he hadn't had an affair during their marriage,

though he did go back to his ex-wife and their three children.

-I mean, very humiliating, in a way.

-Very. Very.

-Lots of men go off with younger women.

-Absolutely.

I wish it was a younger woman

because this was a collective family that was together now,

and it isolated me and my daughter,

so we were like a smaller, no-force twosome,

and there they were, sitting all together.

And I don't think they ever believed or understood

the pain that they had caused.

We're all good to go.

I'll just grab my jacket. Um...

My lowest point was the day I found out.

-Good to go?

-Yeah.

-Let's go.

It was betrayal, fear.

Coming home to a home... I had never lived alone.

Good? Shall we? Come on.

It dawned on me that I'm actually on my own,

raising my daughter by myself.

I'm no longer the eligible girl that I used to be.

So, ultimately, it was fear of being alone.

So what are we doing today, then?

We are going to Tabun Kitchen,

which belongs to my dearest best friend, Hanan Kattan, and Shamim,

and they are hosting a birthday lunch for me.

LAUGHTER

I feel so loved by it all.

-Happy birthday. I'm glad I didn't wear those earrings!

-I know, I know.

I have some incredibly loyal, fabulous friends.

They started a rota amongst themselves.

They had a chat every day as to who would spend the week here

or the few days here,

and so, every few days,

I had a different girlfriend staying with me.

# For she's a jolly good fellow

# For she's a jolly good... #

This went on for months, which was very endearing,

very, very endearing.

-They were obviously worried about you?

-Yeah, yeah.

Because they knew that I...living alone was a tough thing for me.

If I have one wish,

I wish for everybody here to have a great life and a happy life.

That's my wish to you, really.

-Lisa! Health. Health.

-In health and happiness. Absolutely.

Love you!

That was taken when we actually were living in Miami.

It was a difficult time.

We was having problems with the marriage

and we just thought we'd have a fresh start somewhere else.

I think what he was actually doing at that time,

he was planning to do other things.

He was having many affairs during the marriage.

Who were the affairs with? What sort of women?

Supermodels.

Young...young women, beautiful young women.

One day, I had a phone call to say,

"Your husband has been having an affair,

"he's lost all the money and he's now in the Priory."

And, you know, I came off the phone, shocked.

I had the girls with me.

I was actually in my bedroom at the time.

And the first thing that I said, "This isn't true."

That phone call is the turning point in our lives.

Michelle and the girls flew back to the UK.

She petitioned for divorce,

and so began the first round of a seven-year fight.

In one corner was Michelle,

convinced her husband was worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

In the other was Scot, claiming he'd lost everything

in a big Russian property deal and that he was bankrupt.

Years of court proceedings followed

with a husband who constantly defied the court,

refusing to disclose anything about his fortune.

And I was sitting there one day with an ex-Scotland Yard detective...

-As one does.

-As one does.

And he said, "Is there anything he's given you?"

And I said... And actually...

And I said, "Well, actually, yes, the girls have got two laptops."

He said, "Well, have you thought about having those analysed?"

Within three days, he found a folder within the laptop,

and on there was Project Marriage Walk.

-Project Marriage Walk?

-Yeah.

-That was his plan?

-That was his plan, yeah.

-He'd been planning this for a while?

-Absolutely, yeah.

And what was in the folder?

Ah, so there, you will see...

..a list of the properties...

..and assets of just under 400 million

with him as a legal and beneficial owner.

And he was saying he was penniless?

And he was saying he was penniless, yes.

The recovered documents showed properties in prime locations

all over London,

all apparently owned by Scot just before they split.

This is a very strategic business. Clients plan divorces.

They come and see me well ahead of time and they take advice

and they plan their exit.

I mean, how much in advance would they plan?

18 months.

A wealthy husband will come in and he'll sit there

and he'll say, "What happens if...?"

And I do a lot of what I call "what if" meetings.

"What happens if I get divorced?"

And then he'll say, "Well, I haven't got quite got there,

"but, if I'm wanting to protect myself now, what steps should I take?"

You say to your client, "Look, there are various things you can do,

"but I don't recommend it - they're not necessarily legal.

"If you get found out, you're in trouble."

We have an expression called "warehousing".

You can seek to give your money away to a third party, but you have to

genuinely give it away and then you may or may not get it back again.

That's one tactic.

You can seek to put money into an offshore trust.

It's actually quite difficult to do legitimately

and properly in this country.

OK, I'm outside, I'm waiting for you. Thanks.

Bye. OK. Thanks, thanks. Bye.

In Lisa's case, the war began over who got the family Rolls,

but then it was worth quarter of a million pounds.

I wanted this car.

I've gone to the showroom, designed it, picked it up.

I had the family name written.

He picked it up from the garage and told them it belonged to him,

and the war started.

The Rolls-Royce wasn't really... It didn't matter,

but it's the fact that it happened at that time that raised

all the anger and raised all the hatred all at the same time.

So, you know, this side of the power was fighting that side of the power.

We were like... punching at each other.

Lisa's brothers, Robbie and Vincent Tchenguiz, had entered the fray.

Multi-millionaire property tycoons,

they shared their offices with Lisa's husband.

My brothers had their suspicions.

You know, they're boys, they're alpha males.

They were super close and super protective.

Vincent and Robbie were worried

Lisa's husband would misrepresent his financial position.

Robbie, my brother, told him to leave our family offices

because then it was like, "Enough now. You know, it's...

"You know, you're hurting her all day long. It's enough."

Taking matters into their own hands,

the brothers downloaded thousands of financial documents

belonging to Vivian.

Vivian, understandably, was very upset.

He successfully sued for breach of privacy.

The judge made it clear there was no compelling evidence

that Vivian had tried to mislead his wife.

There were lawyers everywhere,

legal bills everywhere.

My brothers had their own team, I had my own team.

Vivian had his own team.

So the winners ultimately were really very much the lawyers.

I used to read all the articles, you know,

"Why doesn't she go get a job? Why does she want so much money?"

It really wasn't about "give me all this".

It was well deserved on my part.

I wanted to get back for all the years that I had contributed.

OK, OK.

I think the reason I fought so hard is my pain wasn't a one-minute pain.

It went on for too many years.

I just needed something back for all the years

I contributed so much.

I look at this building as a demonic building.

It makes me feel physically sick.

Five years after Michelle's crusade began, and her case was a mess.

She'd constantly chopped and changed lawyers.

There'd been a number of disputes,

but, it seemed to me, hard for her to give up the fight.

She'd spent millions on an army of lawyers

and private investigators, and she was convinced Scot was hiding money.

MAN MUTTERS

Got you.

One of the investigators Michelle hired was Dai Davies.

Hello. Sit, sit.

In his previous life, he was Head of the Royal Protection Squad.

Wearing his baseball hat.

He was very fond of that.

Dai arranged for an undercover team to follow Scot.

He almost looks as if he thinks he's under surveillance there.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Ordinary folk who go through divorce

don't commission this detective work, do they?

No, but it was as a consequence of what we'd found.

We felt it was viable.

We felt there was credible evidence to show that he was living

a lifestyle not of a pauper.

He always had huge wads of banknotes, high denomination,

and so, whenever he actually got, you know, his wallet,

you could actually see the bulge and the colour of £50 notes.

Well, look at that now - it's on the video there.

You can see that he's just taken out

a fairly substantial wedge

of £50 notes there.

For a man who is a pauper,

allegedly...

I don't normally carry around huge amounts of money in my wallet.

And the aspect is, there's no trace with cash, is there?

For years, Scot had been threatened

with prison for non-disclosure.

When we went back to the court

and he was asked to say... "What did you do?

"And how did you dispose of certain shares?" - millions of them -

he says, "I decline to answer on the grounds I might incriminate myself."

Well, to the great British public, if that's not a clue, you know,

what is?

And yet the courts - this is my point - the courts perpetually

allowed him to continue to evade telling the truth for years,

until eventually a sensible judge said,

"Well, you're going to prison." But unfortunately,

the same sensible judge allowed him out again

without telling us anything, which doesn't make him quite so sensible.

-He never told?

-No. And one has to ask why.

That's a big question, really. I wouldn't want to go to prison.

Scot served three months of a six-month sentence.

When he came out, he caught the bus home.

As for Michelle, she borrowed yet more money

and hired yet more lawyers... and went on with her fight.

Good lawyers are ones where they have to say to the client,

"You're going to lose," because, if you allow a client just to have

the better of you and to fight a case which is rubbish

or is bound to lose, she's going to end up paying a lot of money

to end up worse off than she might have otherwise been

had she taken your advice.

So it is our professional obligation to tell people

when they're wrong and to encourage them not to go down blind alleys.

Litigation has a momentum of its own.

And if you are a woman who is absolutely convinced

that there is this pot of gold and you've been advised that

you're going to get half of it or you're going to get a sizable sum,

you will also have been advised that the court system will look after you.

And for a lot of women, what that really means is, "I've just got to do this,

"I've got to do my homework and I've got to do this religiously,

"and then everything will be all right at the end of it."

And I think it's those women that come unstuck.

No court system, no judge is promising you a rainbow.

You don't know what you're going to get at the end of the day.

It depends on the judge you get,

it depends on whether he had his Weetabix that morning.

It's a lottery.

However fantastic a system we have, there's no absolute certainty

when you litigate.

For Lisa, four years of litigation was quite enough.

I just didn't want to spend another second

wasting my life on a past life that wasn't worth salvaging.

You know, I had no... I felt no kindness towards him,

I felt no feelings.

I wanted out in every manner that I could.

I'd spent too many years litigating with him, and I needed to walk away.

It was toxic. It was going to make me sick, ultimately.

Lisa settled for £15 million -

100 million less than she'd originally asked for.

I took the decision by myself, and it was the best decision

I ever took to move on with the rest of my life.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-How convenient.

-How are you?

-Good, how are you?

-I'm good.

-Can I introduce you? This is Steve.

-Yeah. Of course.

-Steve, this is Steve.

-How are you doing, Steve?

Steve is Lisa's new love.

He's a self-made man in the corporate jet business.

Why don't you just show us around here a little bit?

Show you around? OK. Well, this is an Airbus 319, which is

the inside of this aircraft, similar to what you fly around on easyJet.

A little bit different, kitted out.

Living room, dining room, bedrooms, showers, kitchen, things like that.

This was sort of recreated to be the best location in London.

You used to be based where?

-Based in America. Yeah.

-How come you came here?

I came here more because Lisa was here,

and justified in my head that it made more sense

that the business belonged here.

You came for love, really?

You can say that.

# I'm feeling good... #

Lisa loves her birthdays, and she loves her birthday parties.

-How many people at that, then?

-1,100 people.

Lisa! We love you more than anything in the world!

You're like my second mum!

I know it's hard to imagine 1,100 people that you know,

but we really knew all of them.

I put six months of effort into designing

and making that party very, very particularly bespoke for Lisa.

This is your job, then? Party planner?

Yeah, I had a lot of pleasure out of doing it for her.

Lisa, I love you. Everybody in this room loves you.

And may you, and all of us here, be fortunate enough

to have each other in all of our lives for a long, long time to come.

-What did you spend, tell me? A little hint?

-Yeah...

I could have bought a small plane.

And I think he's 100% correct.

Moving on after divorce is never easy.

But Scot clearly hadn't had a problem.

I was told about this footage of Scot

with his girlfriend, Noelle, on reality TV.

The show follows socialite women

who lead glamorous lives in London.

I first met Scot through my ex-fiance

because they were social friends.

And Scot proposed marriage to me

within three months of me knowing him.

-BLEEP.

-Champagne glass, please.

Fresh out of prison, it's clear from the programme Scot was enjoying

a champagne lifestyle whilst still pleading poverty in court.

What do you want the next year to bring?

Happiness for you and me.

Oh, so romantic.

Noelle is a former model and 20 years younger than Scot.

Scot's going through

one of the most high-profile divorces in Britain.

His ex-wife is saying he has all this money,

he's saying I don't have anything,

and it's four years of trying to figure out, "Does he/doesn't he?"

Noelle and Scot don't hold back from talking on camera

about the court case or his ex-wife.

The woman's a fantasist, but she spins a great yarn.

And a lot of people have obviously believed in it.

It's because she believes her own crap.

But in the end, after seven years in court,

it was Scot who was branded a liar.

DOG BARKS

The judge at the final hearing said Scot had hidden assets

but, as hard as he tried, the judge couldn't locate

the hundreds of millions Michelle maintained existed.

When you walked away from court, how did you feel?

I felt devastated.

-The court awarded you 26 million.

-Mm-hm.

-But that wasn't enough, as far as you were concerned?

-No.

It wasn't what was actually in the estate.

The judge said that I would probably never get paid.

-He was awarding you the money, nevertheless?

-Yes.

So...

But knowing you'd probably never find it ever...

So what is the point of court proceedings?

I had to fight tooth and nail for seven years in the family courts

to have an award which was ignored.

Please tell me how that's justice?

For eight long years, Scot stuck to his story that he had no money.

-RECORDING:

-Do I have your word that you're on you own at the moment?

-MICHELLE:

-Yes, I am on my own at the moment.

Then one day he called Michelle with an extraordinary offer.

For a family torn apart by divorce, the phone call represented

the last chance for two parents to end their war.

But Scot and Michelle never settled,

and they never spoke to each other again.

-NEWS ARCHIVE:

-It's emerged a man who died after falling

from a fourth-floor penthouse onto a set of railings

in Marylebone on Monday was the property tycoon Scot Young.

Scot's tragic death remains shrouded in mystery.

At the inquest, the coroner recorded an open verdict,

saying there was no evidence of an accident, suicide or foul play.

This case has been screaming fraud from day one.

And now implicated in that is probably a murder.

There are a number of theories about why Scot died,

but it's widely believed that his death was connected

to the way he'd apparently been making his money.

It's said that in later years

Scot may have been money-laundering for his Russian business partners

and was caught up in a web of criminality.

It certainly would explain why he refused to disclose his finances

to the court and why he was prepared to go to prison -

it may not have been all his own money.

This fraud is huge...

Of course, Scot did eventually offer Michelle £30 million

in the phone call, but there are new claims

that the hundreds of millions she's spent all these years chasing

never actually existed.

Is it possible that he really did lose the money?

Absolutely not. It's ridiculous.

There's a lot of media propaganda that surrounds this case,

but that's why I take it with a pinch of salt.

PHONE RINGS

Well, we'll soon see if it's another stitch-up.

It's called shadow courts.

Scot's death has made Michelle's pursuit of the money

even more difficult.

But 11 years on, she has far from given up

and continues to pursue a number of leads.

Look, he... Look, they have.. No, look... Yeah.

Recently, she discovered Scot had a life insurance policy.

It was taken out long before they separated

and Michelle is a beneficiary.

I'm prepared for them, whatever it takes,

and I'm here to win the war, and I will.

She's having to go to court to stop the money going to her creditors.

I tell you what could be interesting -

if we found out who the witness is and what evidence

they've got. That...

Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. Bye.

-How are you feeling?

-Fine.

It's not the first time I've been to court.

This is probably about the 70th.

-Morning.

-Morning.

Michelle has always maintained her fight isn't just about her case.

These days, she's immersed herself in what she sees as a bigger battle.

And I have to say, there is major injustice happening to families

day in and day out, and I'm campaigning for these people

to have justice.

OK, I will read all of that, take it on board.

-Thank you very much.

-Yes.

-Thank you very much.

-Hello.

-I didn't realise you were on air.

We're finished. We've just finished.

My name's Michelle Young. I have my own foundation

where mainly women and children are being left destitute by the family courts.

It is atrocious. They're being sectioned,

imprisoned with gagging orders

after they've stolen their children.

The cases - it's women and children through the family courts...

..who are losing their children, never seeing their children again.

Could you pass this to all the taxi drivers?

WHISTLES BLOW

To this day, Michelle has never received the £26 million

she was awarded,

though she did receive £300,000 from Scot's life insurance policy.

As for the future,

the £17 million of bankruptcy debts still hang over her.

Hello there. Could I hand that to you?

You are never going to get two people walking away

from a divorce process thinking,

"Gosh, that was good. That was the right answer."

It's very, very rare.

This is always going to be fantastically imperfect.

My own view is that marriage is a very good thing.

A certain amount of money is also a good thing

because not having it is not a good thing.

Having a great deal of money

can produce its own tensions and complications,

but, hey, all's fair in love, war and divorce cases.

People always assume that being a divorce lawyer

is a really miserable and depressing job. I don't see it that way.

But I think it is quite shocking

that love can turn to hate so quickly

and that people's memories are short.

Money and happiness and love are three separate words.

They do not come together very often.

You are kidding me?

-What do you think?

-Oh, my God.

# Fairy tale

# My favourite fairy tale

# Is the one I live

# With wonderful you

# Life is so grand

# A fabulous fairyland... #

-MAN WHISTLES

-Whoo, sexy.

# And we walk it hand in hand

# As lovers do... #

-Can I see it? Can I see it?

-Michelle can come?

SHE GASPS

Wow. How gorgeous.

Oh, my God! Steve!

# With your tender kiss You open the door... #

I'm going to cry.

# You are marvellous, divine... #

What about the future, then?

For the two of you?

And we go off into the sunset.

Now I'm really going to cry. This is amazing!

# Fairy tale... #

There's no reason for us to be married.

We're together with each other all the time -

the same as being married.

This is like the best, I swear.

We're happy and everything's working perfect,

so why change if it's not broken?

I'm just, urch, so overwhelmed. It's so fantastic.

Is it urch or are you overwhelmed?

Like, "urch, I'm going to cry", but I'm so overwhelmed.

If, God forbid, Steve and I got separated, what would happen?

-I go my way, she goes her way.

-I mean, there's no...

There's no...

We have no joint pots.

It will be what's his is his, what's mine is what's mine.

I don't think we'll have any interest

in each other's affairs as such. No.

# Fantasy became a reality... #

Look at the walls.

I've never been happier in my life, and I am the empowered woman

I am today because I have a strong man behind me.

That's great. Let's get a lovely kiss here too. Go on.

Beautiful. Gorgeous. Wonderful.

The Lisa of today is the best Lisa she's ever been.

# Fairy tale... #

Part of it is the bad experiences I've gone through,

the sad ones, the ugly divorces.

The tough times make me grow.

Come on, come on.

I have a lot of my friends who come to me for advice.

I've become the divorce guru of all my girlfriends.

The first thing I say is try and settle, for the sake of your children,

so that they don't have to see so much suffering between two people.

Try and settle because you win your life back quicker.

Litigation is poisonous, it's really poisonous.

# Fairy tale

# My favourite fairy tale

# Is the one I live with wonderful you

# Life is so grand

# A fabulous fairyland

# And we walk it hand in hand

# As lovers do

# Fantasy... #