Millionaire's ex-lover wins reprieve from eviction
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A millionaire racehorse owner has lost the latest round in a three-year legal battle to evict his former mistress and her mother from his home.
Glory Clibbery, an actress, has been granted a temporary reprieve by a High Court judge who ordered an appeal against an earlier eviction order awarded to Ivan Allan.
But the judge urged the couple to reach a compromise in the case, which has left Ms Clibbery penniless and Mr Allan with a huge legal bill.
Mr Allan, 62, and Ms Clibbery, 50, have spent most of the time since they separated in 2000 in an increasingly acrimonious High Court tussle over his £1.7m mansion in Newmarket.
Ms Clibbery claims her mother, who worked for Mr Allan and lived in the house, had been promised it as a "home for life". Mr Allan says he made no such promise and that Ms Clibbery was just one of a string of mistresses he had around the world.
Ms Clibbery says her battle is for the rights of all unmarried partners who need greater legal protection when a relationship ends. The couple had a 15-year relationship. When it ended Mr Allan ordered Ms Clibbery out of his London penthouse.
He was furious when he discovered that she had moved in with her mother, Marguerite, who was employed as his secretary at the Newmarket house. When Mr Allan ordered them out of the house, they refused, and Ms Clibbery sold her story of their sex life to a national newspaper.
Marguerite Clibbery claimed she spent thousands of pounds on the house after Mr Allan told her she could live there "for as long as she liked".
From then on, the case has proceeded through the courts.
Mr Allan won a court case in March which granted him an eviction order against Ms Clibbery and her mother.
A High Court judge ruled that it was "unlikely" that Mr Allan would have promised the house to his lover's mother within months of the relationship beginning.
Ms Clibbery immediately appealed against the decision.
But yesterday's hearing ruled that there should have been a full hearing in the case before the order was granted.
It now seems likely that the case will come before the High Court for the fourth time.
Mr Allan says he has spent £250,000 in legal bills. His ex-lover says she has been left unemployed, in poor health and with huge debts. She also says that she and her mother are facing homelessness.