Judge urges divorcing couple to end 'awful' court fight and reach settlement
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Version 0 of 1. A judge has told a former beauty queen how “awful” divorce court fights are and urged her to try to reach a settlement with her estranged lawyer husband. Mr Justice Holman is today due to start analysing evidence in a multi-million pound cash dispute involving Ekaterina, 42, and Richard Fields, 59, in the family division of the high court in London. The judge has been told that the couple were married for about a decade, have two children and are fighting about the division of assets worth around £6m. He has also heard that the dispute could cost the couple more than £1m in legal bills. Holman, who spent yesterday hearing submissions from lawyers on a preliminary legal issue, said there should be “serious discussion” between the estranged couple and their legal teams to see if a settlement could be negotiated. At the end of Tuesday’s session he asked Mrs Fields if she had experienced litigation before, to which she replied that she had not. “It’s awful. Don’t you think it’s awful? It’s like a boxing match,” he said. “You and Mr Fields were married to each other for 10 years roughly. You have got two children. It really doesn’t have to be like this. It should never have got this far. “Think about what each of you could have done with a million pounds. Just think.” He added: “You should not be going on like this. Frankly, it is very, very unedifying.” |