Richard Mason was married to Kate Mason for 20 years. During this time they had 3 children. They divorced in 2008. As part of the divorce settlement, Richard paid Kate a £4 million ($5,099,000 US dollars) cash sum. The large settlement was because of the huge wealth he earned from co-founding Moneysupermarket.com. He also continued parenting the three boys after the divorce. In 2016, he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, and told by doctors he couldn't father children naturally. They told him he had been infertile since birth. According to Mr. Mason, his backstabbing ex-wife initially said "of course the boys are yours, no matter what the science might suggest" . However, she latter admitted she cheated many times during their marriage.
Mr. Mason then sued his ex-wife for paternity fraud in an effort to get at least a portion of his £4 million back.
Rather than going thru a lengthy and probably public trial, Kate decided in November 2018 to pay Richard £250,000 ($318,000) - on condition the biological father remained anonymous. It appears Kate may not actually know who the father is since she tacitly admitted she had more than one boyfriend during the marriage.
Considering the amount of money Richard paid to his former wife and the amount of effort he put into raising someone else's children, £250,000 does not seem like adequate compensation. Richard was lied to and exploited by his backstabbing wife not only during most his marriage but also for eight years after his divorce. He continued being a father and financing the boys after his marriage to Kate ended.
However, Roger Terrell, a lawyer representing Mr Mason believes the case is a legal first, as there are no other known instances (in Britain) where a financial settlement has been set aside due to paternity fraud. It should be noted, upon research, one other case was discovered where an exploited husband received compensation for paternity fraud. Mr Richard Rodwell was awarded by the court £50,000 when he sued his ex-wife for "deceit" after a DNA paternity test showed his daughter and son were not his biological children.
Paternity fraud remains legal throughout most of the western world. The fact Mr Mason received any compensation at all means there is hope for other exploited husbands.
6 comments:
Nowhere near enough in this case but more than he would have got in Australia. In Australia, in the test case of Magill V, Magill a panel of high court judges decided that the law could not treat fraud within marriage as a tort and that no compensation could be paid for paternity fraud. It later transpired that one of the judges in that case, Susan Crennan, had committed paternity fraud herself, which should have rendered the decision null. But it still stands.
Based Susan Crennan's fraud, I think the decision can be challenged in the future.
She also took away the paternity rights of her boyfriends. What if they wanted to be part of their childrens' lives? This is awful all around.
Nice read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that.
And he just bought me lunch since I found it for him smile Therefore let me rephrase that:
Thank you for lunch!
Great post. I will be going through some of these issues as well..
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