Adulterer’s widow `not entitled to pounds 400,000 damages’
AN INSURANCE company is refusing to pay out a pounds 400,000 claim to the widow of a motor cycle accident victim because he had a mistress and his marriage would not have lasted.
The soldier’s wife did not know about the other woman until he died in the crash with his lover riding pillion, the High Court was told yesterday. Sadie Dalziel, 30, said she had “worshipped the ground walked on” by her husband, Jason, and was shocked to discover his double life. Elizabeth Simpson, who survived when the bike crashed in Hull in 1996, also had no idea there was a wife and considered herself his fiancee, the court was told.
Lance Corporal Dalziel, who was 25 and due to start a tour of duty in Kosovo, also left a baby daughter, Caris, now five.
Mrs Dalziel, of Burham, Kent, wants damages from the other driver, Gary Donald, from Doncaster. His insurers have admitted 80 per cent liability but say the widow should have only modest damages because her marriage was “unlikely to have survived”.
Mrs Dalziel told Deputy High Court Judge Robert Moxon-Browne QC that if her husband had survived she would have stayed with him even if she had discovered about the other woman.
Howard Elgot, representing Mr Donald, told the judge Miss Simpson, of Shiptonthorpe, near York, had been told by the soldier he would move to be near her when he returned from Kosovo in late 1996.
Mr Elgot said Dalziel began his relationship with Miss Simpson in January 1995 and proposed to her in November the same year, eight months after marrying his wife. He said the soldier had disciplinary problems in the Army and his career had also been unlikely to survive.
The widow’s lawyers argue that she and her daughter were dependent on Dalziel and are entitled to substantial compensation for his death.