Acrimony is equal to Alimony

The carefully devised plan swung into action shortly after lunchtime on Tuesday. Someone with a sense of mischief and perhaps a thirst for revenge fed eight pieces of A4 paper into a fax machine.

The material, photocopies of confidential legal documents, was dispatched to two news organisations, the Press Association and Bloomberg. The sender clearly hoped that the lurid claims would be on their way to every newspaper and media group in the land.

Sensational claims

The claims in the divorce papers were sensational: they alleged that Sir Paul McCartney, the former Beatle, was a drunken, drugged-up wife-beater and uncaring father. It was even claimed that, in a drunken rage, he had stabbed his disabled wife, Heather Mills McCartney, with a broken wine glass.

In another alleged attack, while Mills McCartney was pregnant, Sir Paul was said to have pushed her into a bath in a hotel room in Rome. Not content with manhandling his wife, Sir Paul was even accused of depriving their daughter, Beatrice, of her mother's milk. "They are my breasts," the former Beatle, 64, is alleged to have told his 38-year-old wife, petulantly.

Everything abandoned

In an age where divorces are intended to be more civilised, the McCartneys are proof that when the stakes get high, everything - from flowery advice in Mills McCartney's own "life-skills" book to a mutual agreement not to use the media - is abandoned. In short, the higher the potential alimony, the greater the acrimony.

When the McCartneys announced their separation in May, they blamed the pressures of "intolerable" media intrusion for the end of their four-year marriage. If both sides had continued to play by the rules of their "amicable" divorce, that would have been their final dealing with news-hungry journalists.

Yet, for a time last Tuesday, the anonymous leaker's plans to use the media went briefly astray. The Press Association and Bloomberg decided the confidential papers were too "hot" for them to handle. Concerns over divorce law, defamation and privacy meant that they did not write up and distribute the story.

Daily frenzy

Instead, by early evening on Tuesday, the court papers had mysteriously found their way to the Daily Mail. After frantic late-night phone calls to contacts and even later checks with in-house lawyers, the paper spread the allegations over the first four pages of its final edition.

"Heather: Macca ‘beat me up'" screamed the front-page headline, which began a four-day frenzy from rival newspapers for stories on the feuding couple.

Predictably enough, both sides last week denied all knowledge of who sent the fax. Sir Paul's aides were quick to point out that he had no benefit from such a dastardly act, while his estranged wife had much to gain.

Intriguingly, the original document was 13 pages long yet, rather conveniently for Mills McCartney, five pages apparently detailing some of her unsavoury behaviour were missing from the dossier sent to the media.

The lawyers

Mills McCartney's solicitor is Anthony Julius, 50, nicknamed "Anthony Genius" for his incisive intelligence. He won the late Princess Diana a £17 million (Dh117.6 million) settlement from Prince Charles when their marriage ended, a decade ago.

Sir Paul's lawyer is Fiona Shackleton, also 50, who was Prince Charles's divorce lawyer and whose combination of toughness and charm have earned her the nickname of "The Steel Magnolia".

Not surprised

Experienced divorce lawyers are not surprised that the McCartneys split has already turned dirty: it was even claimed that Mills McCartney had taped evidence that her husband attacked and verbally abused her.

Marilyn Stowe is head of the family unit at Grahame Stowe Bateson, a law firm based in Harrogate. She regularly handles cases involving huge assets and has a number of wealthy clients, including Mandy Smith, the ex-wife of Bill Wyman, the former Rolling Stone.

The McCartneys battle, she says, is a perfect example of why an overhaul of UK divorce laws is needed. "We desperately need a move towards a ‘no-fault' system, said Stowe.

Rising levels

"From my experience, very few people get divorced on a whim, and so if somebody feels that their marriage has irretrievably broken down, they should be able to say so, full stop. Why should they have to go into the details of unreasonable behaviour and who did what to whom?"