Features
More McCartney News
Sir
The media began speculating that the source had removed them because they contained information that Heather Mills McCartney wouldn’t want splashed all over the papers, although The Sunday Times says the missing pages contain the names and addresses of current and former staff who are prepared to testify that she was a victim of the former Beatle’s alleged drunken cruelty and violence.
It also says McCartney’s lawyers are considering going to Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, to ask for an official investigation into how documents were leaked.
The Times also reported that the papers appear to contradict what McCartney’s 38-year-old estranged wife said in a self-help book she wrote while the couple was still together.
The leaked papers say that McCartney forced her to stay in bed in the morning. In “Life Balance,” she wrote: “Setting the alarm 30 minutes earlier each morning … allows me a little bit of personal space before the day begins.”
The copies of the documents containing this detail, and Mills McCartney’s version of the minutiae of the marriage, which the tabloids have expanded to make pages of copy, are believed to come from papers drawn up by her barrister.
They were received by anonymous fax at the central London offices of the Press Association late in the afternoon of October 17th.
The following morning, The Daily Mail published the details in what it called a front-page exclusive and London’s Evening Standard, its sister paper, followed suit.
BBC, ITV, Sky News and papers including Daily Express, Daily Mirror, The Star, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and The Sun were also quick to run accounts of the leaked documents’ contents.
Mills McCartney is reportedly taking legal action against the Mail, the Standard and the Sun.
Now the Mail has said she has “tangible evidence” that she was mistreated, she’s charted much of the marriage breakdown “on her digital camcorder” and has witnesses who will testify to her claims.
According to The Sunday Times piece, the leaked papers weren’t copies of the ones that solicitors Mishcon de Reya would have filed to the High Court on Mills McCartney’s behalf but earlier drafts that would have only been circulated between her and her legal team.
– John Gammon