Watson Esam | News | Celebrity Chef, Copy Documents and the Divorce Court

If your marriage breaks down and you are considering taking, retaining or diverting financial documents belonging to your spouse, or even breaking into their computer, act with caution.

The celebrity chef, Marco Pierre White has recently taken action against his wife's solicitors in a divorce case, accusing both his wife and her solicitors of wrongful interference with his property.

It is acceptable to obtain and pass documents to your solicitors which come to your attention, as long as they are not illegally obtained (a classic example is the other party's bank statements and financial documentation left around the house), provided the originals are not retained and are returned expediently to the other party.

Marco Pierre White alleged that his wife had gone one step further, that she had intercepted his mail and taken original documents retaining them for a considerable amount of time without returning them.  Civil action is presently being pursued by Marco Pierre White for wrongful interference and the outcome of that case is pending.

Meanwhile, the family courts have emphasised that they would not penalise the taking, copying and immediate return of documents provided there was no use of force to obtain them and there was no interception or retention of documents or the removal of any hard disks recording documents electronically.  The public interest for the truth to be revealed and the need for a fair trial needs to be balanced against the right to respect private lives and correspondence.

A word of warning to computer buffs.  Breaking an encrypted code or password to obtain access to a computer is the same as using force and although documents downloaded from a computer may not be regarded as stolen, you may be committing a criminal offence if you take the hard drive itself.

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