Parting

Roy Greenslade in The Guardian ponders this morning why only the Independent amongst the nationals reported the divorce of Richard Desmond.

The Independent was taking no risks. Here's the full copy.

The newspaper proprietor Richard Desmond was divorced by his wife of 27 years yesterday.

Neither the 58-year-old Express Group boss nor Janet Desmond attended the Principal Registry of the High Court's Family Division in London. Mrs Desmond was granted a decree nisi by District Judge Anne Aitken under the special procedure rule, on the grounds of her husband's unreasonable behaviour.

Janet Robertson was Richard's girlfriend when he was approached to acquire the UK publishing licence for Penthouse Magazine in 1982.  Up until then Northern & Shell had made its money from International Musician magazine, followed by Home Organist and 30 or so other speciality magazines on topics such as bicycles and stamps.  Richard asked Janet what she thought about the deal. "She told me as long as I don't date the dollies it was okay".  The relationship with Penthouse folded in the 90s, but by then Northern & Shell had a broader range of "speciality magazines" with names I don't like to type.

Richard and Janet married in 1983, and have had one son, Robert. In the Northern & Shell building, one meeting room was named the Janet Desmond Room . Over the years, Janet has been at Richard's side at all sorts of charity events, with friends Sir Philip Green, Simon Cowell, Katie Price and many others. All seemed well in the relationship last year. In July 2009, court reporters noted that Richard and Janet attended every day of last year's unsuccessful libel case against Tom Bowers, holding hands much of the time.  Indeed, the case had its genesis in a poolside reading of the Bower book about Conrad Black, when Richard and Janet were at their villa on Majorca. Son Robert featured in a key element of the trial, as the court heard a tape of Richard talking to Jafar Omid, a fund manager, who was temporarily unable to repay a £75,000 investment made in Robert's name. "Let me tell you mate, let me tell you something, let me tell you something Jafar as good a f***ing, as good as a friend I am, I am the worst f***ing enemy you'll ever have. Please get me a cheque around, thank you very much."

It was the fearless Independent that first suggested that something was up at the Desmond home, The Badgers, just off The Bishop's Avenue, East Finchley; a feature in June this year said Mr Desmond seemed calm, perhaps "because he had a new girlfriend".  Green tea, exercise bikes and a renewed focus on charity had taken the place of cigar-chomping.  However, he still had enough energy, in the same feature, to take a swipe at Roy Greenslade, who gave evidence on the Tom Bower side during the libel case. Roy described him as having the worst reputation of any newspaper proprietor since the Second World War. "Very, very, very upsetting. I don't get upset very often but that really upset me," was the Desmond response.. "They call him Roy Greenslime and I understand why."