Spencer offers to settle divorce by paying wife £1/2m and maintenance

Earl Spencer, brother of the late Princess of Wales, has offered his wife Victoria a divorce settlement of more than four million…

Earl Spencer, brother of the late Princess of Wales, has offered his wife Victoria a divorce settlement of more than four million rand (£550,000) in addition to monthly maintenance payments, his spokeswoman said yesterday.

Ms Shelly-Ann Claircourt gave details of the offer in Cape Town, where Earl Spencer and his wife are involved in a legal battle over where financial details of the divorce should be adjudicated. Lady Spencer wants a ruling in Britain, while Earl Spencer prefers South Africa.

Separately, the Cape Times newspaper said Earl Spencer had withdrawn a court attempt to bar it and its sister paper, the Cape Argus, from publishing details of the hearings.

"The withdrawal of Spencer's application for an interdict is a great victory for press freedom," the Cape Times editor, Mr Ryland Fisher, told reporters.

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There was no immediate comment from Earl Spencer, who had said publication of the details - barred by South African law - would harm his four children, who live in Cape Town.

Ms Claircourt said the earl had formally presented the settlement offer to his estranged wife on Sunday night, the eve of the legal proceedings, and it formed part of the court record.

"He is offering Victoria 2.4 million rand in cash and a house worth approximately two million rand," she said. In addition, the earl would give her a car and pay 20,000 rand (about £2,500) a month in maintenance until Lady Spencer died or remarried, Ms Claircourt said.

She said Earl Spencer had undertaken to allow an English court to reassess the maintenance and provide for Victoria's housing needs if and when she returned to Britain from her home in Cape Town.

The earl would in addition meet all the costs involved in bringing up their children, aged between three and six.

Earl Spencer (33) and Lady Spencer (32) live in separate homes in Constantia, one of Cape Town's most affluent suburbs. They moved there in 1995, ostensibly to escape press harassment.

Lady Spencer is seeking a lump sum of £3.75 million and £5,000 a year for each of the four children, including twins, according to court papers.

Ms Claircourt said Lady Spencer appeared to have been "underwhelmed" by her husband's offer.

Lawyers for Lady Spencer have said she will seek to show that the marriage was short-lived because of the behaviour of her husband, who they have accused of "serial adultery" and being a bully.