Turbine tycoon's ex seeks a WINDFALL

Why does the former wife of hippy dropout turned green millionaire Dale Vince think she deserves nearly £2million from him 23 years after their divorce?

Dale Vince is one of Britain's richest menREX

Dale Vince is one of Britain's richest men

WITH his craggy features, biker T-shirts and ripped jeans, Dale Vince OBE is a study in middle-aged cool. Posing alongside his glamorous second wife Kate it's hard to believe that the founder of Ecotricity - the renewable energy firm worth £57million - was once a New Age traveller with no money.

It's equally hard to believe that his elegant blonde wife would be interested in him if he still was. She certainly does not look the sort of woman who would be comfortable living in a converted ambulance next to a B-road.

But that's exactly the life one of Britain's richest men once shared with his first wife Kathleen Wyatt, from whom Vince was divorced in 1992 following a 10-year marriage (the couple separated after two years).

Now the former Mrs Vince wants a £1.9million share of his multimillion-pound fortune created in the years since they separated. For during the time Vince, 53, was free to build his business, Wyatt, 55, was busy raising their son Dane, now aged 31.

At the heart of the case lies the evident contrast in fortunes between the couple. The disparity between them could not be more acute.

Vince and his second wife - whom he met in the early 1990s when she came to work for him at Ecotricity - live in a £3million 18th-century fort in Stroud, Gloucestershire, with their five-year-old son.

An ardent vegan he is the chairman of football team Forest Green Rovers and banned meat from the stadium. He is a keen biker and drives a custom-built electric supercar.

Wyatt, meanwhile, is said to have slept in a bus shelter before one of the court hearings over the past four years and "struggled" to bring up their son Dane.

Her home near Monmouth, South Wales, was described in court as being "damp and badly heated". She bought it for £60,000 under the council's right-to-buy scheme and shares it with her grown-up children from a subsequent relationship.

Her daughter Jessie, 18, claims the entire household is out of work and on benefits. However, Vince insists the claims of poverty have been "distorted". "She owns her own house and is in positive equity," he insisted of his ex-wife's circumstances this week.

He maintains that by pursuing him in court she is "cashing in an old lottery ticket", suggesting that he views her claim as opportunistic. The case has polarised opinion. There are those who view it as potentially opening the floodgates for divorcees to cash in on the future success of an ex-partner, even decades after a relationship has ended. Others herald it as a landmark case for women left holding the baby.

But although Ms Wyatt suggests that Vince did not financially contribute to the welfare of Dane he insists that the Supreme Court didn't hear the other side. "She didn't bring him up alone and she didn't do it without any help from me. It is completely untrue," he says. "I gave a lot of money. A lot of cars, a lot of washing machines."

Dane has lived with his father since the age of 18 and now works for him. However, Ms Wyatt clearly believes that her role raising him entitles her to a portion of the fortune Vince has made.

Whatever one thinks about the merits of her argument, it is indisputable that even a small financial award would make a significant difference to a woman whose face suggests she has led a hard life. It certainly sounds complicated.

Ms Wyatt currently lives with her unemployed son Robin, 21, her unemployed daughter Jessie, 18, Jessie's unemployed boyfriend Ashley Lloyd, 24, and their threemonth-old daughter Scarlett.

Dale Vince with his second wife KatePIXEL8000

Dale Vince with his second wife Kate

Her eldest daughter Emily, 36, is a convicted burglar, drug addict a convicted burglar, drug addict and prostitute currently serving a sentence in Eastwood Park Prison in Gloucester. Emily's young daughter Alita will soon be coming to live with her grandmother.

"She has been a full-time mum," says her daughter Jessie. "She was self-employed for a while as a gardener - she is quite creative. She has been on benefits a few times but mostly I think she has been trying to work.

"When she lost the court case we thought we would lose everything and be homeless and we have been really struggling," she adds, referring to her mother's original case in December 2012 when a judge ordered Vince to pay her £125,000. This was eventually struck out by Appeal Court judges but will now be heard by a judge in the Family Division of the High Court.

The couple met as students - Ms Wyatt was already mother to a toddler named Emily. They married when they were in their early 20s and lived a New Age traveller lifestyle before separating in the mid-1980s and divorcing in 1992. In the mid-1990s Vince launched the green energy giant Ecotricity which now has 100,000 customers.

The son of a self-employed lorry driver, he grew up in a two-bedroom bungalow in Yarmouth, Norfolk. He dropped out of school at the age of 15 and spent a decade as a New Age traveller and inventor.

"Work made my father unhappy - he was always worried about paying the mortgage. That's why I decided to drop out and live like a hippy. I didn't want a career or a mortgage. I wanted to pursue an alternative, low-impact way of life," he once explained.

Vince then spent a decade living "off-grid" - generating the power he needed through a home-made windmill made of recycled materials attached to the top of his converted ambulance.

In 1991 he saw the first wind farm. "I thought, either I can carry on by myself with the windmill on my van or I can get into the big stuff."

In 1996 he built his first windmill in Gloucestershire and started supplying "green electricity".

Dale Vince's former wife Kathleen WyattCENTRAL NEWS

Dale Vince's former wife Kathleen Wyatt

At his football club he has installed an organic grass pitch cut by a solar-powered lawnmower. He draws a small salary from his company "reinvests the rest in the cause" and remains passionate about waste.

"Kate's very energy aware and so are my children but in my family I'm still the one who says, 'You left a light on'. I've got more awareness about that than most people," he says.

And, as with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, there is more than a touch of egocentricity about Ecotricity. Vince knows how to use publicity to his advantage and has never been shy about being the public face of a company which holds his own values as its core.

Yesterday he chose to release a press release about his company's boycott of Air France following its shipments of monkeys to laboratories. Good PR for the monkeys, as well as good timing for a man who stands accused of being a cruel and uncaring ex-husband.

Asked if he is feeling "annoyed" by the case - he is having to pay both sets of legal fees totalling £500,000 so far - Vince said this week: "Frustrated is probably a better one-word description. There has been such a great passing of time - our relationship ended 32 years ago. We both did what we could at the time. It was a very long time ago."

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