Olympic star McColgan in property battle after marital split

OLYMPIC silver medal star Liz McColgan and her estranged husband have begun a legal battle to divide their assets in a bitter separation.

Liz McColgan did not appear at Arbroath Sheriff Court Liz McColgan did not appear at Arbroath Sheriff Court

Peter McColgan appeared in court yesterday as it emerged that a top independent school is taking legal advice over a debt of almost £10,000.

It is believed to be outstanding school fees for their daughter, Eilish, 21, now an Olympic steeplechaser.

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Mrs McColgan, 48, did not appear for the hearing at Arbroath Sheriff Court.

The mother of five, who now coaches Eilish, was represented by her solicitor, George Donnelly. He told the court the couple had agreed in principle to the “balance” of the division.

But Mr Donnelly said: “We now have to agree the actual division. It is a case of moving chess pieces round the chess board.”

The rules of the court are that we don’t allow these to be handed out, except to litigants and agents

Sheriff Kevin Veal

He added that the action did not involve the former marital home, at Panbride, near Carnoustie, Angus, but related to other properties.

The case is a civil action about the allocation of the various properties the couple own jointly.

Sheriff Kevin Veal adjourned the case until November 3 for further negotiations by the couple to be continued.

However, he refused to make public the case documents detailing exactly what the assets in contention were.

He said: “The rules of the court are that we don’t allow these to be handed out, except to litigants and agents.”

Mr McColgan, 49, who arrived at the court with a female companion, said any suggestion that he owed money to the High School of Dundee, where Dundee University student  Eilish was once a pupil was “not accurate at all”.

He declined to make any further comment.

Speaking from the gym she runs next to the home the couple once shared, Mrs McColgan, 47, said she had “no comment” to make about why her estranged husband had raised the action against her.

A spokeswoman for  the High School of Dundee said rector John Halliday felt it would be “inappropriate at this time to a make a comment”. The McColgans, who announced their split in 2010, hit the headlines last year when Liz was accused of assaulting her husband of 22 years.

At the end of the case, Sheriff Derek Pyle dismissed claims by Mr  McColgan, who is  originally from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, that his wife had punched and “prodded” him at during a dispute at their home in July 2011.

Mrs McColgan, who always denied the allegations, was found not guilty following a day-long trial at Arbroath Sheriff Court.

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