Heather Mills
- Profession: Gold digger
- Place/Date of Birth: Aldershot, Hampshire, 12 January 1968
- Associated with: Paul McCartney
Mr Justice Bennett will deliver the details of his decision in private at the High Court in London, but he will then take instructions from the parties over releasing any of the details.
The judge is believed to be trying to end the speculation over how much Sir Paul must find from his reputed £825 million assets to bring his marriage to an end.
Some lawyers have claimed it could be the biggest contested divorce settlement in British legal history with a final payout of about £60 million.
More conservative estimates put the figure at about £10 million because of the short duration of the marriage and the fact that most of Sir Paul’s wealth was established decades before the couple met.
Even if one or both of the McCartneys decide to keep the divorce judgment a secret, the whole matter could come into the open if either side is unhappy with the ruling and decides to go to the Court of Appeal.
Target date set in Macca divorce battle - Feb 28 2008
A target date of March 17 has been set for the ruling on the epic divorce battle between Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills.
Mr Justice Bennett is currently dealing with cases in Cardiff but is expected to return to London to give his ruling.
Sources say the judge may approach the parties over whether they would agree to allowing parts of the ruling to be made public.
Any public version would almost certainly be heavily revised but would aim to end the speculation on how much ex-Beatle Sir Paul is paying the former model from his reputed £825 million fortune.
There have been reports of demands from Miss Mills varying between £10 million and £60 million to end the four-year marriage.
If either she or Sir Paul do not agree with the judge’s verdict, the case could go to the Court of Appeal where High Court Family Division secrecy ends and the whole of the case will be in the public eye.
Heather Mills makes sexiest poll - Feb 22 2008
Heather Mills is about to be crowned one of the world’s sexiest women.
The estranged wife of Sir Paul McCartney has seen her popularity surge since her divorce battle with the ex-Beatle hit the High Court.
Heather, 40, has never made an appearance in the 100 Sexiest Women In The World FHM list before. But the mother-of-one has received thousands of votes in this year’s poll.
She is currently 95th in the annual FHM list, ahead of socialite Paris Hilton, singer Gwen Stefani and Spider-Man actress Kirsten Dunst.
Current favourites for the top positions include Girls Aloud star Cheryl Cole and actress Jessica Alba, last year’s winner.
FHM deputy editor Chris Bell said Heather is receiving around 1,000 votes a day, compared to 15 previously. He said: "Heather Mills has always been vilified as a gold-digger with a dubious past.
"But with her pin-sharp power suits and model good-looks, thousands of FHM readers have realised she’s about to become the world’s most eligible - and richest - single woman."
The winner of the online poll will be announced on April 24.
Judge to rule on McCartney divorce - Feb 18 2008
Heather Mills’s divorce battle over Sir Paul McCartney’s reputed £825 million fortune is to be decided by a High Court judge.
It will be up to Mr Justice Bennett to divide the spoils of their four-year marriage after the couple spent a week and a day in court behind closed doors.
Nicholas Mostyn QC, who has been representing the former Beatle in his fight with the former model, agreed as he left court that the judge had reserved his ruling.
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Heather Mills has definitely got one hell of a story, she was born in 1968, her mother left the family home when she nine, leaving Heather to care for her siblings under the watchful eye of an abusive father. Heather ran away from home at thirteen and found herself homeless, living under Waterloo arches for four months.
She was eventually "discovered" and started modelling, it wasn’t long after that at the age of 22, that she moved to Northern Yugoslavia, now Slovenia, for a holiday and eventually ended up moving there to build a new life and become a ski instructor. Whilst out there she witnessed the outbreak of civil war and the effect it had on many of her friends. On her return to England she set up a refugee crisis centre, funded by the modelling work that she was still doing, she continued her charity work over the next two years when tragedy struck, on a visit to the UK.
In August 1993, Heather was involved in a road accident with a police motorcycle. Her injuries included crushed ribs, a punctured lung, and multiple fractures of the pelvis and the loss of her left leg below the knee. Realising her modelling career would now possibly be over, she summoned the press into her hospital room and sold her story.
Through the adjustment of returning to ’normal’ life with one leg, Heather found a practical problem that she felt she could solve. Her residual limb, or stump as she prefers to call it, was fitted with an artificial limb. But due to the nature of the wound changing in shape and size, the prosthetic leg had to be continually replaced, whilst the old leg would be discarded. Heather realised that if the redundant prosthesis would never find another use, there must be literally thousands out there just waiting for a new home. With her experiences in the former Yugoslavia, Heather knew that these redundant limbs would be more than welcome in areas such as the Former Yugoslavia.
Heather instigated a nation-wide appeal for the donation of unwanted prostheses, and then employed the services of the inmates at Brixton prison to dismantle the limbs and make them ready for transport. October 1994, just a year after her accident, the first convoy of artificial limbs and medical equipment left for Zargreb. Arriving at the Institute of Prosthetics in Zargreb the limbs were now ready to be fitted. Over 22,000 amputees and victims of land-mine explosions have been helped since the first Convoy left the U.K.
It was not long after that at the young age of 25 that Heather wrote her biography, whilst most 25 year olds could hardly fill a chapter, Heather had a real story to tell. ’Out on a Limb’ landed straight onto The Times’ best-seller list as well as appearing in the 1997 Reader’s Digest Best non-fiction compilation. The proceeds from the book go to raising money for child amputee war victim’s world-wide (although the most publicised are in the Former Yugoslavia). All Heather’s charity work has funded from her own pocket.
Heather has been given many accolades and awards for her work for charity. Former Prime Minister John Major presented her with the Gold Award for Outstanding Achievement; The Times presented her with their Human Achievement Award, and the British Chamber of Commerce not only named her Outstanding Young Person of the Year, but also named an award after her - the Heather Mills Award. If this was not enough, in 1996 she received a nomination for The Nobel Prize and has since received the 1999 "People of the Year Award", The "Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement 2000 Award", The "Pantene Spirit of Beauty Award" and the "Woman of the Year" by the Blue Drop Group in Sicily as well as lots more.
Heather collected the "REDBROOK Mother & Shakers Award", presented by Hillary Clinton, and she received the Victory Award hosted by the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington DC.
If that was not enough, Heather has also done a lot of TV work presenting for programmes such as That’s Esther.
In her personal life, she found temporary happiness with ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney. Despite some rather obvious objections from Paul’s daughter Stella, the couple married in 2002 and had a daughter together.
In 2006 both Paul and Heather made a joint statement confirming their separation, after Paul McCartney filed for divorce, citing ‘unreasonable behaviour’. What has followed has been a media storm, with Heather at the heart of the controversy.
The main allegations is that she merely married Sir Paul for his money and fame, with British papers suggesting that this could be the biggest divorce settlement ever witnessed. Heather has always denied the allegation of being a ‘gold digger’, claiming that the separation and process of divorce is ‘worse than losing my leg’.
Alongside her threat to sue national papers over ‘false, damaging and immensely upsetting’ reports about the divorce, it has also been reported that Heather has received death threats since splitting with her husband.
In January 2003, a settlement was announced between the two parties, believed to amount to £32 million, plus a gagging order.
April 2008