Fed up with gossip, British millionaire posts details of his divorce settlement on the Web

Businessman Gary Dean was sick of the gossip. He found that
following a divorce from his wife of almost 20 years, local
rumormongers had branded him a cheapskate.
So he took the unusual step of posting details of his divorce
settlement on the Internet, allowing neighbors and strangers alike to
learn of the luxury cars, expensive jewelry and 3.7 million pounds
(US$7.4 million) in cash awarded to his former wife, Helen.
"Over the course of the last year I have been subject to gossip
about my divorce, some of it just silly tittle-tattle, and some of it
malicious," Dean, 47, wrote on the site, http://www.deandivorce.com.
Dean said he had been depicted by some as a "greedy, tight, ruthless" man "who abandoned my wife and children."
"It's simply not true at all and I've decided that instead of
allowing the rumor mill to continue churning out nonsense, I'd just set
out the actual facts to stop it," Dean wrote.Divorce hearings in Britain are held in private, and the details of
settlements rarely become public. When Paul McCartney and Heather Mills
divorced earlier this years, the judge took the unusual step of
revealing details of the US$50 million settlement to appease intense
press and public hunger for information.
Details of the Deans' divorce, settled at a court in Preston,
northwest England, in July 2007, show that Gary Dean agreed to pay his
wife a lump sum of 3.7 million pounds, plus 15,000 pounds (US$30,000) a
year for each of their four children until they are 17.
His wife also got to keep all her jewelry, diamonds and watches, a
Mercedes E500, an Audi convertible and the personalized license plates
7HD and 10HD.
The site also provides a description of the couple's comfortable
lifestyle, which included "two or three holidays a year on average in
high-class hotels."
"I take no joy in setting this all out here," wrote Dean, a
publishing and advertising millionaire who lived with his wife and
family in the village of St. Michaels, northwest England.
"I'd rather it be unnecessary, but if it stops the gossip, the
sneering looks and the seriously defamatory comments being made about
me it will have been worth it."
He told Friday's edition of The Times newspaper that being a
millionaire in a small community had made him something of a
local celebrity.
"If I lived in a city like London, Manchester or Birmingham, where
there are a lot of wealthy people, the type of money I have earned
would mean nothing," he said. "When you live in a small area it's
almost like living in a goldfish bowl."From the International Herald Tribune.