A Tory minister today defended Matt Hancock by insisting he had ‘worked without a break’ during the pandemic despite claims he may have been cheating on his wife with an aide for a year including allegedly ‘sh**ging on the taxpayer’ at the G7 summit.
Justice Minister Robert Buckland also defended Boris Johnson for not sacking him immediately and said that Mr Hancock finally quit having realised that his ‘credibility’ was shot – but only after the PM and several ministers defended him for nearly two days.
Gina Coladangelo was confronted as long ago as 2019 by ministerial aides to Matt Hancock who asked outright if there was any romance between the pair, something the twice-married mother-of-three flatly denied, it has emerged.
The new couple are lying low today and it is thought Miss Coladangelo is taking refuge in a rental home on the south coast. It was unclear where Mr Hancock was, with no sign of him at either his marital home in London or constituency address in Suffolk as he faces a series of probes into his conduct including the decision to appoint Miss Coladangelo, the use of a private Gmail account for work and health contracts secured by friends and acquaintances during the pandemic.
Mr Buckland suggested many of the Prime Minister’s critics ‘can’t get over the fact that he [Johnson] is popular in the country’ and told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Matt Hancock is no longer the health secretary – he resigned on Saturday, and I’m amazed we’re having a discussion like this.
‘He resigned because he considered the matter carefully, he could see the issue of credibility was one that was really majoring. Matt Hancock had been I think an incredibly hard-working health secretary over the last three years, in fact, but in the last 16 months somebody who frankly worked without a break to deal with this crisis.’
Mr Buckland also suggested that police or MI5 should look into how CCTV from inside a minister’s office was leaked and that . He said: ‘I think sweeps [of Government offices] should be conducted regularly, particularly where sensitive material is being handled’.
It came as Labour MP Fleur Anderson has asked Scotland Yard to investigate Mr Hancock’s clinch with Gina Coladangelo as a breach of Covid restrictions, telling police: ‘These rules are there for everyone’.
Mr Hancock was today accused of ‘sh**ging on the taxpayer’ after it was revealed he took his mistress to the G7 summit and claims they may have started their affair a year ago with the shamed Tory who has abandoned his wife Martha and is said to have told friends: ‘He loves her and wants to be with her. It’s properly serious’.
The Health Secretary’s trip to a meeting of fellow ministers at Oxford University in early June included an overnight stay – but it is not known if his lover Gina Coladangelo shared his bed four weeks after their CCTV kiss against his office door.
But there are suspicions that they may have enjoyed a night away together in a luxury hotel after a day of working in the city where they met while studying more than 20 years ago. The summit was just 50 miles from his north London family home, which he shared with his wife of 15 years Martha, 44, and their three children – but Mr Hancock decided to have a night away on June 3.
One cabinet source told The Sunday Times: ‘She went with him to the G7 health ministers summit. Did he disclose this to the PM? If it was shown he was sh**ging on the taxpayer, he had to go. He’s been puritan-in-chief in the government and now it turns out he’s a massive, lying hypocrite’.
As unanswered questions remain over the affair, it also emerged today:
- The shamed couple are lying low as their heartbroken spouses pick up the pieces after their affair – with Mr Hancock facing probe-after-probe over his conduct in office;
- Boris Johnson tried to stand by adulterer Matt Hancock but cabinet support drained away with ministers unwilling to defend him in public;
- There were calls last night for Mr Hancock to be stripped of his £16,000 severance pay. The payment is standard to ministers in whatever circumstances they leave their role;
- Justice Secretary Robert Buckland hints police and MI5 should probe the leaking of office CCTV that sank his friend and said: ‘On the face of it, this was an unauthorised sharing of data’ adding offices should be swept for bugs;
- Labour is demanding Matt Hancock be investigated for attempting to ‘conduct Government business in secret’ by using a personal email account. He was accused yesterday of misleading the public over his insistence that he had not helped a former pub landlord win a lucrative coronavirus contract;
Tory sources said the Prime Minister, who fought to keep the Health Secretary in his job, was warned by party whips that support had ‘drained away’ after he admitted breaking his own lockdown rules over his affair with a married aide
It then emerged the 42-year-old had abandoned his wife (pictured left Matt Hancock and wife Martha) as well as his job and Gina Coladangelo, 43, has left her homeware tycoon husband, Oliver Tress (right)
It is not known however if they remained together after the first day of the event in Oxford, which involved a dinner and overnight stay in a luxury hotel in the city where they met as university students. Pictured: Mr Hancock welcomes German counterpart Jens Spahn to Mansfield College, Oxford
No 10 sources said the Prime Minister had only agreed ‘reluctantly’ to accept his resignation. It came after fellow Cabinet ministers warned they were unwilling to support him in public after the PM insisted the matter was closed
The Hancocks, Gina Coladangelo and Oliver Tress: How they met and the affair that has torn them apart
Mr Hancock resigned as Health Secretary less than 48 hours after pictures emerged of him in a passionate embrace with Gina Coladangelo, pictured together above
- 1993: Oliver Tress opens the first Oliver Bonas store on London’s Fulham Road
- 1995: Matt Hancock starts studying PPE at the same time as Gina Coladangelo at Oxford University, where he also meets his future wife Martha Millar
- 1998: Matt Hancock and Gina Coladangelo graduate from Oxford, where they also worked on studio radio
- 2006: Matt Hancock marries Martha Millar
- 2002: Gina Coladangelo starts working at lobbying firm Luther Pendragon, where she stays until 2014
- 2011: Oliver Tress and Gina Coladangelo are believed to have married around this year
- 2014: Gina Coladangelo starts working as marketing and communications director at Oliver Bonas
- 2018: Matt Hancock becomes Health Secretary
- 2020: Gina Coladangelo is hired by Matt Hancock as a non-executive director at the Department of Health. But she may have been advising him since 2019
- May 6, 2021: Colleagues kiss passionately in his Whitehall office
- June 3: Matt and Gina head to Oxford together for G7 health summit and may have stayed together
- June 25: The Sun reveals the affair after CCTV emerges of them kissing
- June 26: Matt Hancock resigns as Health Secretary and the new couple go to ground
It came as rumours emerged that they may have been having a secret affair for more than a year. The millionaire lobbyist, 43, whose husband is the founder of Oliver Bonas, first started working for Mr Hancock since his failed leadership bid in 2019.
Justice Minister Robert Buckland squirmed today as he was asked why Boris Johnson said the matter is closed and then changed his mind.
He said: ‘I think there was a swirl of things going on here. There were of course the private matters, the private life matters, and indeed as the hours went by it was clear that there was, I think, an understandable groundswell of concern about how important it is that those who set the rules keep to them and I think that when we look back at this we will see that it took a day or so but the right outcome was achieved and it was correct for Matt Hancock to resign.’
But Mr Buckland suggested the Prime Minister’s critics are merely jealous of his popularity, when questioned about ministerial standards.
‘The truth is a lot of people just don’t like the PM and they veil their dislike in this sort of language and they can’t get over the fact he’s popular in the country,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Mr Buckland also said he is ‘amazed’ to still be facing questions on Monday about the delay to Mr Hancock’s exit.
Asked about the leaking of the CCTV, Mr Buckland said: ‘I think that there is an important principle here about the need for ministers and civil servants who often are handling very sensitive material and information to have a safe space within which to work.
‘Now, I accept that CCTV is a factor of all our daily lives, we are probably being filmed in all sorts of places as we go about our lawful business.
‘But I do think that there is a wider issue here of concern that we should all satisfy ourselves about that there isn’t inappropriate coverage being taken of sensitive matters which could be used in a way by those who wish us ill, other unfriendly governments or other people who do not have the interests of our country at heart.
When asked if he had a secret camera in his office he said: ‘I have asked that question. I don’t think so. I have never seen any camera facilities.
‘I know there is CCTV in the building for obvious security reasons but I am sure that many of my colleagues ill be asking the same question and making sure that the offices are swept just in case there are unauthorised devices in there that could be a national security breach.
‘I think that is the sensible thing to do’, adding: ‘I think frankly sweeps should be conducted regularly, particularly where sensitive material is being handled’.
Questions are being asked as to how long Matt Hancock’s affair with a top aide was going on before they were caught out. As friends said the pair were a ‘love match’ and possibly looking at moving in together, Westminster sources said rumours have abounded about their closeness for more than a year.
Miss Coladangelo was confronted as long ago as 2019 by ministerial aides who asked outright if there was any romance between the pair, something the twice-married mother-of-three flatly denied.
An insider told The Times: ‘He’s frustrated with himself at the mistakes he’s made but he’s really happy with Gina. He loves her and wants to be with her. It’s serious. It’s an affair of the heart, he feels totally sure about what he’s doing’.
A friend of Martha Hancock, who is believed to be battling Long Covid after catching it from her husband last March, said: ‘It’s completely come out of the blue for her. There’s real private pain here’. She had believed their marriage had been ‘happy and stable’, and reportedly had no suspicions over her Facebook friend, whom she had also met while at Oxford.
Her 42-year-old husband has abandoned her as well as his job. While Miss Coladangelo, 43, has left her homeware tycoon husband, Oliver Tress – her second husband. He even helped her pack her 4×4 as she left him on Thursday night.
It also emerged that Boris Johnson was forced to accept Hancock’s resignation after fellow Cabinet ministers warned they were unwilling to support him in public. Tory sources said the Prime Minister, who fought to keep the Health Secretary in his job, was warned by party whips that support had ‘drained away’ after he admitted breaking his own lockdown rules over his affair with a married aide.
No Cabinet ministers voiced support for Mr Hancock on social media, even after the PM backed him to stay on Friday and said he ‘considered the matter closed’.
A Cabinet source told the Mail: ‘To be fair to the Prime Minister, his automatic reflex is to try to save people rather than throwing them to the wolves every time there’s a Twitter storm. But I think in this case it was obvious on Friday that this couldn’t end any other way.
‘What’s p****d people off is Matt’s sheer hypocrisy. He’s set the rules and not followed them. He’s put his mistress on the payroll.
‘And when Professor Ferguson was in a similar position, he tried to set the police on him.
‘That’s why no-one was prepared to break sweat to save him. His credibility was shot – everyone could see that apart from the Prime Minister. And no-one wanted to risk their own credibility by backing him.’
Mr Hancock finally resigned from his position as Health Secretary on Saturday, more than a day after CCTV showed him in a passionate clinch with glamorous aide Gina Coladangelo.
Yesterday the pair were lying low, staying out of the public eye following the pictures that showed them kissing and groping against the door in Mr Hancock’s ministerial office.
But betrayed wife Martha Hancock, 44, an osteopath of aristocratic descent, emerged from her home in north London to walk the dog.
Mrs Hancock is said to be suffering from Long Covid, thought to have been caught from her husband in March last year. She maintained a dignified silence – but was still wearing her wedding ring.
Friends insisted the extramarital affair only began in May, the same month that Mr Hancock and Miss Coladangelo were caught in the incriminating footage.
Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s wife Martha, a 44-year-old osteopath, was pictured outside her North London home on Sunday
The Health Secretary, 42, and Gina Coladangelo are expected to make a go of their relationship after an affair
The sting that brought down Matt Hancock was executed by a whistleblower in his department who contacted opponents of the Health Secretary’s stance on lockdown to help expose his affair. The clinch took place around this corner (bottom right part of image). The camera in question can be seen on the ceiling (top right-hand corner)
After allowing a month to elapse, the whistleblower approached lockdown sceptics and asked them to help sell the incendiary footage to the media
The door (to the left) is the same one as seen in the footage of Matt Hancock’s clinch
Hancock (centre) and Miss Coladangelo had come a long way since they met on Oxford student radio station Oxygen FM in the late ’90s
But others said the pair, who have known each other since university days when they met at Oxford, have raised eyebrows for some time.
Miss Coladangelo was confronted as long ago as 2019 by ministerial aides who asked outright if there was any romance between the pair, something the twice-married mother-of-three flatly denied.
It was thought Miss Coladangelo was taking refuge in a rental home on the south coast last night. It was unclear where Mr Hancock was, with no sign of him at either his marital home in London or constituency address in Suffolk.
‘He is in love with Gina,’ a close friend said. ‘It started recently, but is serious.’
Other sources said the ‘love match’ had featured intimate restaurant meals and a hotel stay during a summit.
Mr Hancock’s demise began late on Thursday afternoon. He had been in the House of Commons, defending his department’s controversial plans to share data on tens of millions of National Health Service patients with outside organisations.
After saying his piece and leaving, he received a call from The Sun newspaper at around 6pm, informing him that they had photos and video of him kissing his aide in his office, taken on May 6.
After saying as little as possible to the journalist, he returned to the London residence he shares with wife Martha, when they are not at their home in his Suffolk constituency, and their three children.
Mr Hancock is understood to have told her that the story was set to appear, about the photographs it contained and that their marriage was over.
He then woke their youngest son, who is just eight-years-old, to tell him too that he was going.
Family friends said yesterday it was a bombshell from nowhere for Martha. She had believed their marriage had been ‘happy and stable’, and reportedly had no suspicions over her Facebook friend, whom she had also met while at Oxford.
The Hancock family had enjoyed Christmas parties with Miss Coladangelo and her husband, a joint founder of the Oliver Bonas retail chain.
Miss Coladangelo was seen on Thursday evening, shortly after the newspaper’s phone call, outside the £4million mansion she shares with her husband and children. He was reportedly helping her load her car with belongings.
She is said to be lying low at a house in West Sussex and – on Friday as the scandal gathered pace – to have been ‘cheery’. On that day, despite the devastating headlines and an instant storm of calls for Mr Hancock to resign, both he and Downing Street insisted they were standing firm.
By late morning, Mr Hancock had finally conceded he may have behaved wrongly, apologising for breaching social distancing rules – but he insisted that he was staying in the job.
He and Miss Coladangelo had come a long way since they met on Oxford student radio station Oxygen FM in the late ’90s. She was the star of the show, presenting a politics programme, with many male admirers – while Mr Hancock, according to his fellow volunteers, was a lowly sports reporter.
Miss Coladangelo even told Radio 4 how when he was given a rare free ticket to commentate on a rugby match, he ended up oversleeping and failing to get to the stadium on time.
Instead, he watched the match on a pub television screen – but phoned his report in at half-time, pretending he had been at the game in person.
The lies and bluffing finally came to an end early on Saturday evening, when Mr Hancock visited the Prime Minister’s country residence Chequers then issued a video resigning his post. Mr Hancock said: ‘The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.’
There were calls last night for Mr Hancock to be stripped of his £16,000 severance pay. The payment is standard to ministers in whatever circumstances they leave their role.
Tory MPs also started to turn against Mr Hancock over the weekend as they were deluged with complaints from constituents about his conduct.
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said the PM had made a misjudgment in initially trying to keep him in post.
‘Loyalty is normally a virtue,’ he said. ‘But it became clear within hours that Matt Hancock was losing the confidence of the public.
‘A lot of colleagues raised that with the Chief Whip and No 10 on Saturday morning. The moment he lost public confidence, how could he stand up and say people have to adhere to these rules when he had broken them himself?’ Mr Hancock quit on Saturday night, around 40 hours after CCTV pictures emerged of him in a passionate embrace in his office with glamourous married aide Gina Coladangelo.
In his resignation letter, which followed private talks in No 10 with the PM, he said he did not want to ‘distract attention’ from efforts to fight Covid.
In reply, Mr Johnson said he could be ‘very proud’ of his record during the pandemic.
No 10 sources said the Prime Minister had only agreed ‘reluctantly’ to accept his resignation. Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis yesterday said Mr Hancock had ‘made the right judgment’ in quitting.
In a sign of the anger his conduct has caused, Mr Lewis was challenged by Sky News host Trevor Phillips over the PM’s fight to keep him in his job.
Mr Phillips said hundreds of people had been prevented from attending his daughter Sushila’s funeral because of Covid laws signed off by Mr Hancock. He told Mr Lewis: ‘The pictures that we saw (of Mr Hancock) were of an encounter on May 6. On May 11 my family buried my daughter who had died not of Covid but during the lockdown.
‘Three hundred of our family and friends turned up online but most of them were not allowed to be at the graveside even though it was in the open air because of the rule of 30, because of the instruction by Mr Hancock.
‘Now the next time one of you tells me what to do in my private life, explain to me why I shouldn’t just tell you where to get off?’
Startled, Mr Lewis responded: ‘I accept and understand the frustration, even the anger, people have. It’s also why what Matt did was wrong.
‘He acknowledged that, why he apologised immediately and acknowledged what he did was wrong, and it’s also why he’s taken the decision that his position was untenable.’
Victims’ families said the PM’s failure to sack Mr Hancock was ‘a slap in the face’ to those whose lives been in turmoil during the pandemic.
Diane Mayhew, of the campaign group Rights for Residents, said: ‘Boris Johnson is now showing weak leadership once again.
‘His refusal to sack Matt Hancock for breaching social distancing rules effectively condones such behaviour.
‘How can they expect the public to sacrifice their freedoms and follow the guidance when even those who set it are unable to abide by it?’ Craig Bicknell, who was ordered to stop comforting his mother at his father’s funeral, described the response to the scandal as a ‘farce and embarrassment’ for the Government.
Martyn Brunt, who did not sit face-to face with his 91-year-old mother Sylvia for a year due to Covid restrictions, said Mr Johnson’s reaction had left him exasperated.
He told BBC 5 Live: ‘It’s difficult not to be able to hold her hand, to give her a hug but I do it because it’s the right thing to do for her.
‘So to see that those rules only apply to me and everybody but the person setting the rules was a slap in the face. I think he should have been sacked.
In Hancock’s (pictured) resignation letter, which followed private talks in No 10 with the PM, he said he did not want to ‘distract attention’ from efforts to fight Covid. In reply, Mr Johnson said he could be ‘very proud’ of his record during the pandemic
Matt Hancock woke up his sleeping eight-year-old son to tell him he was leaving family on day Gina Coladangelo affair broke as friends say long Covid-hit wife ‘thought their marriage was happy and stable’
Matt Hancock woke up his sleeping eight-year-old son to inform him that he was leaving his mother as troubling questions remain about how long his affair with a top aide was going on before they were caught out, it was revealed today.
The former Health Secretary’s now estranged wife Martha, 44, is said to have been poleaxed when her husband told her on Thursday that their marriage was over and he was in love with his aide Gina Coladangelo. Mrs Hancock had believed their relationship was ‘happy and stable’ until that moment, an insider said.
As friends said they were a ‘love match’ and possibly looking at moving in together, Westminster sources said rumours have abounded about their closeness for more than a year.
Mr Hancock finally resigned from his position as Health Secretary on Saturday, more than a day after CCTV showed him in a passionate clinch with Miss Coladangelo, a twice married mother-of-three. It then emerged the 42-year-old had abandoned his wife as well as his job. And Miss Coladangelo, 43, has left her homeware tycoon husband, Oliver Tress.
Mr Hancock’s demise began late on Thursday afternoon. He had been in the House of Commons, defending his department’s controversial plans to share data on tens of millions of National Health Service patients with outside organisations.
After saying his piece and leaving, he received a call from The Sun newspaper at around 6pm, informing him that they had photos and video of him kissing his aide in his office, taken on May 6.
After saying as little as possible to the journalist, he returned to the London residence he shares with wife Martha, when they are not at their home in his Suffolk constituency, and their three children.
Mr Hancock is understood to have told her that the story was set to appear, about the photographs it contained and that their marriage was over. He then woke their youngest son, who is just eight-years-old, to tell him too that he was going.
Family friends said yesterday it was a bombshell from nowhere for Martha. She had believed their marriage had been ‘happy and stable’, and reportedly had no suspicions over her Facebook friend, whom she had also met while at Oxford.
As unanswered questions remain over the affair, it also emerged today:
Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s wife Martha Hancock, a 44-year-old osteopath, pictured outside her North London home yesterday
Mrs Hancock is said to be suffering from Long Covid, thought to have been caught from her husband in March last year. She maintained a dignified silence – but was still wearing her wedding ring
The Hancock family had enjoyed Christmas parties with Miss Coladangelo and her husband, a joint founder of the Oliver Bonas retail chain
Yesterday the pair were lying low, staying out of the public eye following the pictures that showed them kissing and groping against the door in Mr Hancock’s ministerial office.
But betrayed wife Martha Hancock, 44, an osteopath of aristocratic descent, emerged from her home in north London to walk the dog.
Mrs Hancock is said to be suffering from Long Covid, thought to have been caught from her husband in March last year. She maintained a dignified silence – but was still wearing her wedding ring.
Friends insisted the extramarital affair only began in May, the same month that Mr Hancock and Miss Coladangelo were caught in the incriminating footage.
But others said the pair, who have known each other since university days when they met at Oxford, have raised eyebrows for some time.
Miss Coladangelo was confronted as long ago as 2019 by ministerial aides who asked outright if there was any romance between the pair, something the twice-married mother-of-three flatly denied.
It was thought Miss Coladangelo was taking refuge in a rental home on the south coast last night. It was unclear where Mr Hancock was, with no sign of him at either his marital home in London or constituency address in Suffolk.
‘He is in love with Gina,’ a close friend said. ‘It started recently, but is serious.’
Other sources said the ‘love match’ had featured intimate restaurant meals and a hotel stay during a summit.
The Hancock family had enjoyed Christmas parties with Miss Coladangelo and her husband, a joint founder of the Oliver Bonas retail chain.
Miss Coladangelo was seen on Thursday evening, shortly after the newspaper’s phone call, outside the £4million mansion she shares with her husband and children. He was reportedly helping her load her car with belongings.
She is said to be lying low at a house in West Sussex and – on Friday as the scandal gathered pace – to have been ‘cheery’. On that day, despite the devastating headlines and an instant storm of calls for Mr Hancock to resign, both he and Downing Street insisted they were standing firm.
By late morning, Mr Hancock had finally conceded he may have behaved wrongly, apologising for breaching social distancing rules – but he insisted that he was staying in the job.
He and Miss Coladangelo had come a long way since they met on Oxford student radio station Oxygen FM in the late ’90s. She was the star of the show, presenting a politics programme, with many male admirers – while Mr Hancock, according to his fellow volunteers, was a lowly sports reporter.
Miss Coladangelo even told Radio 4 how when he was given a rare free ticket to commentate on a rugby match, he ended up oversleeping and failing to get to the stadium on time.
Matt Hancock hands his coat to his aide Gina Coladangelo before a television interview outside BBC’s Broadcasting House in London, May 16, 2021
Instead, he watched the match on a pub television screen – but phoned his report in at half-time, pretending he had been at the game in person.
The lies and bluffing finally came to an end early on Saturday evening, when Mr Hancock visited the Prime Minister’s country residence Chequers then issued a video resigning his post. Mr Hancock said: ‘The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.’
There were calls last night for Mr Hancock to be stripped of his £16,000 severance pay. The payment is standard to ministers in whatever circumstances they leave their role.
Labour housing spokesman Lucy Powell told Sky’s Trevor Phillips On Sunday that people would be ‘appalled to think that there’s going to be a severance payment to Matt Hancock in this circumstance’.
She added: ‘We will certainly be calling that out and asking the Prime Minister not to give him that.’
No more jokes, this remains a cruel betrayal
Commentary by Bel Mooney for the Daily Mail
It was hard not to laugh at all the jokes circulating on social media at Matt Hancock’s expense. ‘Hands – Face – Back to My Place’ was just one, mocking the endless stream of orders that came from the Secretary of State for Health – telling us what to do in our private lives when he was snogging a glamorous ‘aide’ in the office.
Like everyone I giggled at all the puns on the last four letters of his surname and enjoyed the comeuppance of a man I’ve always considered to be a second-rater promoted way above his ability. Just another politician caught with his pants down (I jeered to a friend) and how ridiculous.
But then I saw the newspaper pictures of Hancock’s wronged wife Martha – so pretty in her flowery dress and still wearing her wedding ring – and felt ashamed.
For there is nothing remotely amusing in this clichéd story of deceit and pain. Nothing to giggle at when Martha Hancock and Gina Coladangelo’s husband Oliver Tress have been publicly humiliated – betrayed by people they trusted.
Worst of all is the realisation that six children have been forced suddenly to accept that a beloved parent has inflicted incalculable, permanent damage on all their lives.
Of course, the situation is as old as humanity itself. Great literature has been inspired by infidelity simply because there is nothing more perennially fascinating than the conflict within the human heart.
All over the world ordinary people, of every age and race and class and creed, fall for people they shouldn’t – because illicit love is as addictive as it can be unexpected and even the most upright person can suddenly be bowled over by passion.
For there is nothing remotely amusing in this clichéd story of deceit and pain. Nothing to giggle at when Martha Hancock and Gina Coladangelo’s husband Oliver Tress have been publicly humiliated – betrayed by people they trusted (pictured: Hancock and Coladangelo in May)
Sleepless nights, desperate yearning, hideously complicated deceptions, consuming guilt and the permanent terror of discovery are the realities of every love affair.
I’ve heard people suggest that a wronged wife or a husband ‘must have known something was going on’. But why? Martha Hancock was used to her husband working long hours and political life offers a myriad excuses for absence.
You can be pretty sure Hancock never had to change his important plans to fit in with half-term or wrestle with the food shopping list or make sure there’s a present ready for the eight-year-old to take to a party.
Oh no, it’s the expendable wife who takes care of the minutiae of family life. I bet Mrs Hancock rolled her eyes when her husband told a journalist, ‘Thank God Martha is wonderful in looking after the children and looking after me and it’s really tough’.
Not nearly as tough as hearing that same grateful husband tell you that your marriage is over because he’s been caught groping a woman you thought was a friend. That’s when you start asking the agonising questions: How long has it been going on? Was I his second best choice back then, when we were all young? Was he thinking about her on Christmas Day?
Was I really so boring that he needed somebody else? Is this what I get for being the ‘wonderful’ loyal wife who supported him in his career? How can I possibly be strong enough to help our children through this scandal when I just want to hide and cry?
As one of Mrs Hancock’s friends has said: ‘This is unimaginably horrible for her and indescribably sad.’ Actually it is easy for me to imagine it because in 2004 my husband Jonathan Dimbleby left me after 35 years of marriage and I, too, had photographers on my doorstep.
It’s no surprise that during my 16 years of writing an advice column I have received many, many letters about infidelity. The terrible shock, bewilderment and pain, the cruel sense of rejection, the feeling that life is over… all those emotions pour out from people who sometimes write years later, because they simply cannot forget.
Once a man with two children wrote to tell me that he had been on the verge of leaving his wife for his mistress when he read one of my replies to somebody else – and realised with a blinding flash of clarity that he had a duty to try to save his marriage: ‘The last nine months have been very hard but I think we’re getting there and we’ll be OK.’
I hope they were. Of course, some marriages can’t be saved and some couples are better apart. Nobody can ever know what goes on between a couple and the most well-suited people can drift apart.
Once there was a stigma attached to divorce. Now nobody seems to care very much – and surely something important has been lost. We do still need to be shocked by the ease with which people hurt each other.
Leaving the political fall-out aside, Matt Hancock has treated his family with great cruelty. Care and decency and respect have been trampled on – yet again.
Wronged partners and miserable children can be capable of great forgiveness, but believe me they never forget.