Marquess cleared of court contempt marital split

TWO FACES of the Marquess of Blandford, heir to one of the country's premier dukedoms and a pounds 100m fortune, were presented to the High Court yesterday.

His version, under cross-examination, was of a separated husband who was anxious to provide for his wife and baby without the expense and waste of time of legal proceedings. But Lady Blandford's counsel's description was of a man who had threatened to take away her car, furniture and two dogs, then leave the country so he could avoid paying maintenance.

Last Friday, a judge issued an order banning Lord Blandford, 37, from leaving England and Wales until proper arrangements were made to comply with maintenance orders for Lady Blandford, 30, and the baby. He has to provide the court with a statement of his income and assets.

On Monday, Lady Blandford obtained injunctions restraining her husband from violence, visiting her or their six-month-old son, George, or her rented stone cottage in Kiddington, Oxfordshire.

Another injunction barred Lord Blandford, heir to the Duke of Marlborough, and Blenheim Palace, from removing the child and various possessions from his wife's home. The couple married in 1990 and separated in January 1992.

Yesterday, tipstaffs (court officials) went to his home at 7.10am to ask him to surrender his passport. When he failed to do so, he was taken from his home, and at 11am he appeared at the High Court in Strand, central London, to answer a charge that he was in contempt of court.

His counsel told the judge that he had not produced a passport because he did not have one. It had been stolen in a mugging four months earlier, and he had last travelled on a visitor's passport, now expired.

For most of last year, the couple's solicitors tried to work out a settlement of their affairs, but eventually Lady Blandford began court proceedings for a legal separation because maintenance payments for her and the baby had been irregular.

In the week before a judge had been due to make a maintenance order, Lord Blandford telephoned his wife with a series of threats, Mr Coleridge said. 'If my client persisted in the proceedings, he said he would remove or cause to be removed the chattels and furniture, her car and the dogs. And he threatened he would go abroad if necessary to avoid the effect of any court order.' He had also used 'very strong language'.

Asked why he had allegedly threatened his wife, Lord Blandford said: 'I was trying to implore her that these matters could be settled on an amicable basis without these extremely lengthy proceedings and these extremely high costs.'

He was cleared of contempt after the judge accepted his undertaking that he would not apply for a passport so long as any restraining order remained in force.

Lord Blandford was questioned by police yesterday afternoon about an alleged assault on a press photographer in the early hours of the morning.