A ‘thoroughly dishonest’ handyman who ended up in a super-rich divorcee’s bed has had a claim for a third of her £10million fortune thrown out today.
Ex-RAF man, Jason Patrick, said he and Daphne McKinley – ex-wife of Formula One racing legend Guy Edwards – lived as ‘man and wife’.
Although he started off doing odd jobs and living above the garage of her mansion, they fell in love and exchanged rings, he claimed.
And he insisted that she had ‘promised and assured’ him that she would share her jet set lifestyle, cash and homes in Britain and abroad with him.
But top judges today ruled that he was just an ’employee’ and ‘good friend’ with whom Mrs McKinley occasionally had sex.
Ex-RAF man, Jason Patrick, said he and Daphne McKinley – ex-wife of Formula One racing legend Guy Edwards – lived as ‘man and wife’ – but a judge today through out a claim for a third of her £10m fortune calling him ‘thoroughly dishonest’
Lord Justice David Richards said Mrs McKinley, 61, was a ‘single, wealthy high profile woman’.
The judge rejected claims that Mrs McKinley ever planned to wed or set up home with her handyman lover
She was a successful property developer in her own right and never had any interest in a ‘committed relationship’ with Patrick.
Mrs McKinley, who received £9.5 million in cash and assets after her divorce, was determined that she would never marry again.
She accepted she had a ‘dalliance’ with pennyless Patrick after he began helping out at her country home, Faylands House, near Henley, in 2003.
But she made clear that ‘theirs was a relationship of employer-employee, who became good friends and companions with the occasional intimacy, or sex.’
At first living in a flat above the garage at Faylands, it was not long before Patrick was invited to move in to Mrs McKinley’s spare room.
During their time together, Patrick, 46, claimed she promised him a share of Faylands, which was sold for £6.75 million in 2008.
He also claimed stakes in an investment property in London, worth £695,000, and her £2 million villa at Cap d’Ail, in the South of France.
Valuing his claim at about £3.5 million, he said he had worked hard on the properties and that she owed much of her success as a property developer to him.
But Mrs McKinley, whose son Sean died, aged 26, in a motor racing accident four years ago, insisted he was simply ‘a kept man’ who worked for her.
Mrs McKinley is the ex-wife of Formula One racing legend Guy Edwards and the couple had a son together Sean, together when he was a child, who tragically died in motor racing crash
Racing driver Guy Edwards with team mascot Suzanne Turner at the height of his fame
Dismissing Patrick’s case in 2014, Judge Nigel Gerald said his claim to have lived with Mrs McKinley as man and wife was a lie.
Lord Justice David Richards said Mrs McKinley, 61, was a ‘single, wealthy high profile woman’ and not tied down to Jason Patrick as he claimed
He was in reality a ‘kept man in addition to being an employee or jobbing worker’ and Mrs McKinley had never made him any promises.
He never genuinely believed that she was his business partner or that he would be entitled to any of her assets.
There was no ‘credible evidence that he has done any work for which he has not been paid’.
And the judge rejected claims that he and Mrs McKinley ever planned to wed or set up home together.
She had ‘flown him all over the world – sometimes as friend, sometimes as companion, sometimes as lover, and sometimes as security’.
Patrick claimed they had given each other Irish Claddagh rings after a ‘whirlwind romance’ and that she had ‘proposed to him on several occasions’.
He claimed their relationship was ‘cemented’ during a Greek holiday and that she assured him she would share everything with him.
Patrick pointed to intimate emails and a festive card in which she wrote,’on our first Christmas of many spent together’.
But she dismissed him as a ‘fantasist’ – although accepting that they had an ‘on-off boyfriend/girlfriend relationship’ for five years.
And the ‘shrewd businesswoman’ said Patrick had simply ‘made up his claim to try and get some money from her’.
Mr Patrick had claimed this Mews house in Knightsbridge was going to be a new family home for himself and Ms McKinley but a court found she wasn’t that serious about him
Challenging the decision before the Court of Appeal, Patrick claimed he had been denied a fair hearing and that Judge Gerald had simply got the facts wrong.
Rejecting his complaints, however, Lord Justice Davis there could be no suggestion that Judge Gerald was not even-handed.
‘Over and again, he found Patrick to be a thoroughly dishonest witness’, added the judge, who was sitting with Lord Justice Lloyd-Jones.