John Moss, outside Central London County Court, has been forced to give up his home after losing a legal battle with his ex mistress
A womanising former Met police officer will have to give up his home after losing a court battle with the former mistress he got pregnant three times.
John Moss, 58, of Dartford, Kent, was unfaithful to his wife with Sandra Wickremasinghe, 52, and was in turn accused of cheating on her during their 25-year affair.
He wanted to marry her, but she never agreed and although they never lived together, a judge ruled Miss Wickremasinghe is entitled to half his house.
Judge Peter Wulwik said Mr Moss had put the house in their joint names ‘as a form of recompense for the way he had treated her’.
The veteran Metropolitan Police officer tried to underplay his ‘womanising’, he said, but had fathered a child she did not know about and paid for her to have three abortions.
In winning an order for sale of the Dartford property, mother-of-three Miss Wickremasinghe said it was ‘scant recompense’ for Mr Moss’ treatment of her.
Ruling on the case, Judge Wulwik told Central London County Court the couple were both married when they met as neighbours in 1991.
They soon began a relationship and she fell pregnant in 1992, 1999 and 2002, each time having abortions paid for by her lover.
Mr Moss’ wife learned of the affair by 2007 and called Miss Wickremasinghe to talk to her.
She told Miss Wickremasinghe that Mr Moss had a three-year-old son with her and had lived with another woman between 1999 and 2001.
Moss, left, was unfaithful to his wife with Sandra Wickremasinghe, 52, (right)and was in turn accused of cheating on her during their 25-year affair
Miss Wickremasinghe was ‘not surprisingly extremely upset’, but the ‘somewhat volatile and on-off’ relationship continued, said the judge.
Mr Moss bought the house in Dartford, in 2008, but the following year transferred it into joint names.
In court, he claimed that he had only done so on the understanding that he and Miss Wickremasinghe would get married.
‘I left my ex-wife to be with Miss Wickremasinghe,’ he told the judge.
But the marriage never materialised and the couple finally parted ways in 2016, sparking a bitter court battle over the £230,000 house.
Miss Wickremasinghe took the case to court to force its sale, while Mr Moss, who quit the police after 20 years’ service in 2011, insisted she was due nothing.
He said he had been ‘naive’ in signing the house into joint names in an attempt to prove his ‘commitment’ to a woman he wanted to marry.
‘I thought I was doing the right thing, to show commitment,’ he told the court.
For Miss Wickremasinghe, barrister Benjamin Channer claimed the motivation behind transferring the house was to ‘make amends’ to her following his wife’s revelations.
It included the ‘three-year-old son she didn’t know about’ and that he was ‘seeing other people’.
However, Mr Moss denied he transferred the house in compensation for his treatment of her.
‘That would be the last thing I would be doing,’ he said. ‘My house, my past, and whom I have gone out with is a matter for me.’
He said he had ‘never lied’ to Miss Wickremasinghe, merely ‘withheld’ certain information.
Ruling in Miss Wickremasinghe’s favour, Judge Wulwik said he found her to be a ‘reliable and patently honest witness’.
Mr Moss was a ‘somewhat aggressive individual’ who tried to avoid blame for the failure of the relationship.
He was trying to ‘minimise his womanising and behaviour towards Miss Wickremasinghe’, he added.
‘He clearly feels it would be unfair for her to have any interest in the property, even though it was put into their joint names at his instigation,’ he said.
He continued: ‘While Mr Moss says that he acted under the belief that they would get married, I am satisfied that she never agreed to marry him.
‘He put the property into joint names to show his commitment to her and also as a form of recompense for the way he had treated her.
‘It was his decision not to seek legal advice before putting the property into the parties’ joint names.
‘That was his decision and his decision alone.’
Ruling that the former couple hold the property in equal shares, the judge ordered that it be sold and the proceeds split.
Father-of-one Mr Moss, who lives in the house with a new girlfriend, said there was no way he could afford to buy Miss Wickremasinghe out of the property.
Claiming he had lost ‘everything’, he said: ‘I won’t be able to buy another house – and this is my son’s inheritance. It’s all I have worked very hard for for the last 40 years.’