**How could a judge make me hand over £2.7million to my ex-wife 10 YEARS after we divorced? Glenn’s cautionary tale and a ruling that could have consequences for all divorced couples **
Ask those who know clothing entrepreneur Glenn Briers and they’ll tell you he’s a decent sort of bloke who built his £10 million fashion empire on shrewd business sense and a handshake. He’s a man of his word, they say. Fair-minded. Benevolent.
Today, though, 61-year-old Glenn is … well, let’s just say he’s feeling less than kindly towards the British justice system.
Ten days ago, more than a decade after they divorced, he was ordered to pay his ex-wife, Nicola, £2.7 million of the fortune he has built up — despite having already given her the £600,000 family house, a £10,000-a-year salary and child maintenance for their three children when his company was worth little more than £1million in 2005.
The ruling, backed by three Appeal Court judges, is an important one, for until last week a wife who made a claim on a husband’s hard-earned fortune years after the ink was dry on the decree absolute might, if she was lucky, receive a sum for her basic needs.
But 12 years after the original divorce settlement that he believed was binding, Glenn’s 58-year-old ex-wife has been awarded an eye-watering share of his riches that surely goes far beyond the needs of a retired teacher with no dependants, a pension and a mortgage-free barn conversion.
According to Judge Mark Rogers, Glenn was ‘psychologically controlling’ and ‘a liar’ who was ‘dismissive’ of his ex-wife’s contribution to the family wealth and had ‘misled’ her into accepting less than her due.
It is these aspersions cast upon his character that Mr Briers finds particularly hard to swallow.
‘Calling me a liar really, really appals me,’ he says. ‘I know her barrister had to try to make a case to the judge by ruining my character, but where was the proof I was psychologically controlling? I have never treated a woman badly, and I don’t know how she could say things like that about me.
‘In court, she tried to make out our relationship had completely broken down after the divorce and she didn’t want anything to do with me.
My QC said, “Well, why did you have him round for Christmas dinner on a number of occasions?’ She said: “I never had him for Christmas dinner.” I couldn’t believe it. Her mum and my three children were sat there when I went round.
‘It was my word against hers — and the judge chose to believe her. Why? Is it because she’s a woman and I’m a man? Or because I’m the one with the money?’
He shakes his head in disbelief.
‘These judges are just part of the liberal establishment where everything is about political correctness. I don’t know what real-life experiences they have, but it seems to me they’re out of touch with the real world.
‘Virtually everything I’ve made I’ve put back into that company. Now I’ve had to take that working capital out of the business to pay her. That makes it really difficult for us in a climate when business is so tough.
‘It might mean redundancies, and I’ve never had to lose anyone before.
‘At a time when I thought I could relax and leave the running of the company to two of my children who work with me, I’m having to go back and work my guts out while she’s retired with £2 million in the bank and a lovely barn conversion worth about £600,000.
‘Why should I work 18 hours a day for someone else to take it off me?’
There are, of course, two sides to every story, particularly when it comes to divorce. But few of those who know and work with Glenn have a bad word to say about him.
He doesn’t live a champagne lifestyle. His home is a £425,000 barn conversation a mile from his Willenhall headquarters in the West Midlands, where he employs 18 staff, including his son and younger daughter.
At Christmas, they — along with those who work in his chain of shops countrywide, selling well-known brands Lambretta and Vision Streetwear — receive generous bonuses for their hard work.
Or they did. Last year, following the court ruling, those bonuses were cut.
Glenn challenged the decision, insisting his ex-wife should get a £500,000 lump sum at most. Pointing to the decade-long delay in her asking for more, he argued that it was far too late for her to go back on their ‘clean break’. But last month three senior judges ordered him to pay the full £2.7 million.
Had Glenn tied up their 2005 divorce agreement legally, he suspects it is unlikely that Nicola would have had a case to bring. But Glenn is a man who believes his word is his bond.
The son of a post office worker in Belfast, Glenn moved to the Midlands to train as a teacher when he was 18. He was teaching history and PE when he met and married Nicola, a fellow teacher, 30 years ago, in 1987.
Their son, now 29, was born the year he started his business with £81, basing it in the family garage. Spotting the growing trend for sportswear, he began buying end-of-line garments and selling them on.
By the time his youngest daughter was born in 1991, the company was successful enough for him to lease a warehouse and give up teaching.
‘My ex-wife blames the marriage break-up on that,’ he says. ‘We had less in common. She carried on teaching and had no interest in my business. The marriage began to drift apart. We did things with the kids, but otherwise we didn’t spend much time together. She’d go out with her friends and I’d go out with mine.’
In 2001, the couple decided to separate. Glenn says he bought a £119,000 house a mile from the family home, but continued to pay the mortgage and give his wife a £10,000-a-year salary. Two years later, having started a new relationship, Nicola asked for a divorce.
‘We talked about how we were going to do it. Her concern was she had a career and a lovely house which she didn’t want to have to sell. The basis of our agreement was that she’d keep the house, I’d give her £150,000 to pay off the mortgage and I’d have the company. I also gave her a £10,000 salary and £330-a-month for each of the kids.
‘She sat in front of the solicitor and it was drawn up, but we never signed it. It just never happened.
‘I was happy to give her half of everything. My guiding principle was things were going to stay the same for the children. In the horrible situation of divorce, you feel guilt. I wanted things to be as easy for them as possible.
‘I did, financially, what any good dad would do. I bought the cheapest three-bedroom house I could possibly buy so the kids could come to stay. It was a mile from the family house so I could take them to football, dance classes, Guides and they could pop in whenever they wanted.’
Glenn is now palpably upset. He loves his three children dearly.
‘If the kids were involved, I’d spend every penny I could. She got everything I’d promised her. I think she did pretty well. Being single again gave me the freedom to put my heart and soul into the company. I could work 18 hours a day without having to check in with her, do whatever I wanted — and I did. The business thrived.’
Indeed, company records show a spectacular success story, with a net profit of £178,730 in 2004 that had more than quadrupled to £920,577 in 2011.
He says things remained by and large amicable between his ex-wife and himself. She also continued friendships with his mother, sister, brother and nephews and nieces in Belfast until five years ago, when Glenn began his first serious relationship since the divorce.
‘Shortly before Christmas 2012, she came running into my office. I’d just started a relationship. Until then I hadn’t wanted to be with anyone. Once bitten, twice shy.
‘She was angry about me seeing someone. Why she thought she could do that after we’d been split up for years was beyond me. She stormed out, and later I got the letter from her solicitor.
‘I always feared she could do this because the agreement was never signed. I’m trying to be as dispassionate as I can be, but I know I did the right thing by her and the family.’
With his strong moral compass, Glenn isn’t a man who takes it lightly when he feels he has been treated unfairly. ‘I’d always felt she shouldn’t get anything more, but it was a tough time for my children.
‘My son said: “Dad just give her something.” I said: “All right, offer her £500,000.” She wouldn’t accept it.
A few months down the line, my son said: “I still think you should try and see if she’ll accept a bit more.” The children were stuck in the middle. He wanted me to try to do something to make it go away. The legal bills were mounting into hundreds of thousands. I said: “All we’re doing here is spending money that’s being wasted from our children’s inheritance. It’s money down the drain.”’
He sought advice from Kevin Harris-James of Harrison Clark Rickerbys, a specialist in complex, high value divorce claims, who mounted a robust defence when the case ended up before Judge Mark Rogers at Nottingham County Court on March 9, 2015.
Glenn didn’t look at his ex-wife once during the five-day hearing. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to,’ he says. ‘I felt betrayed.
‘One of my arguments was if she wasn’t happy with the settlement, why didn’t she do anything all those years between 2005 and 2012?
‘Her QC said: “Well, Mr Briers could have gone and queried the settlement himself.”
‘The judge just nods to him. I thought: “What? You agree with him? Why would I go and challenge something I was happy with?”
‘I just felt the judge wasn’t giving any weight to what I said. They made me out to be a liar, saying I hadn’t told her I’d bought that house for £119,000.
‘It was no big deal. I found somewhere round the corner from the warehouse and a mile from the kids. I needed somewhere to live and have my kids come to stay. I took the money out of the business to buy it in a tax-efficient way.
‘What did she want me to do? Go and live on the street? I don’t know why she got it into her head that I’d deliberately misled her. She’s a …’
Glenn stops. Shakes his head.
‘Her QC said I was awkward and evasive. I’d never been in a dock before. Maybe I should have been more prepared. I just didn’t lie down and accept everything that was being said about me.’
Mrs Brier’s solicitor, Anne Thomson, of FBC Manby Bowdler, said: ‘Three Court of Appeal judges unanimously ruled that Mr Briers had not honestly disclosed his assets to Mrs Briers.
‘The ruling recognised that a full and final settlement of the couple’s financial affairs had never been concluded, and that his failure to honestly disclose his assets meant Mrs Briers had not given her informed consent to the settlement.’
When the judgment was given in April 2015, Glenn was ordered to pay his ex-wife a lump sum of £1.6 million and hand over 25 per cent of his pension. By nature a laidback man, he was, as he says, ‘pretty mad’.
He says he is ‘fairly philosophical about it now’, but still cannot understand how a man can be condemned as a ‘liar’ and ‘psychologically controlling’ based upon the claims of a disgruntled ex-wife on the witness stand.
‘Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m not a liar. It’s so unjust.
‘When you get divorced, make sure any agreement is signed, sealed and delivered because, if you don’t, someone can come back at you — someone you haven’t lived with for 16 years — and take millions off you. You tell me what’s fair about that.’
