'Is it because she's a woman and I'm a man?' Husband's fury over £2.7m divorce payout

Glenn Briers, from Willenhall, was working as a teacher when he started up a clothing empire in 1988 with just £81 of his own money.

By the time he broke up with his wife Nicola in 2002, after 18 years of marriage and three children, the business was turning over £1 million a year.

Nearly a decade after their split a judge found Mrs Briers deserved a £2.7m slice of his £10m fortune last year – and last week the Court of Appeal backed that ruling.

Mr Briers said: "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?"

Mr Briers' business has grown into a major fashion chain – turning over up to £30m.

The company has outlets across the country, including stores in Birmingham, York, Belfast and London's Carnaby Street.

In 2002 the couple separated and Mr Briers left the matrimonial home. They were divorced in 2005.

Following the divorce, Mr Briers gave his ex-wife £150,000 to pay off the mortgage and she kept the family home in Willenhall. She also received a support payment of £10,000 a year and child maintenance, but no financial order was made.

In 2015, a judge sitting at the Family Court in Birmingham ruled that Mr Briers should pay a lump sum of £1.6m to his former partner and transfer 25 per cent of a Standard Life pension, the Standard Life policy and his Standard Life shares to her – totalling around £2.7m.

Mr Briers appealed the decision, claiming his ex-wife should only be given a lump sum of £500,000, but judges at the Court of Appeal dismissed his claim, meaning the mother of three will now receive the £2.7m payout.

This Appeal Court ruling has now set a precedent for similar decisions. Mr Briers said: "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?"

He added: "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."

"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.

"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 Briers' solicitor, Anne Thomson, of FBC Manby Bowdler, said the judgement 'sends out a clear message that people must declare their true financial position or face the consequences', even years later.

She said the case also highlighted the need for a formal court order to rule on any financial settlement following a split.

The solicitor said: "We are very pleased with the ruling in favour of Mrs Briers, which recognised that a full and final settlement of the couple's financial affairs had never been concluded.

"Although 10 years passed between the divorce and Mrs Briers' application for a financial remedy order, the key issue here is not that this is a retrospective application.

"The message here is that unless you give full and frank disclosure of your financial situation at the time of divorce, a court can revisit this, even 10 years down the line.

"The court found that Mr Briers' failure to honestly disclose his assets meant that Mrs Briers had not given her informed consent to the settlement. It's crucial that you embody any agreement in a court order so there can be no dispute in the future over a financial settlement by either party."