Forget taxi drivers. Look how Mellor abused those closest to him! We reveal what happened AFTER his notorious affair.
- Mr Mellor hit the headlines in 1992 following revelations of affair
- The married Tory minister had been seeing a 31-year-old actress
- Their liaisons took place at a flat in Earl's Court where he stayed overnight
- Despite this, his sons grew up to become PR and investments gurus
- He later cuckolded Lord Cobham, who was left contemplating suicide
- This week it emerged he had launched foul-mouth tirade at taxi driver
After calling his taxi driver a ‘sweaty, stupid little s**t’, David Mellor rattled through the long list of things that make him a superior human being. ‘You’ve been driving a cab for ten years? I have been in the Cabinet!’ he declared. ‘I am an award-winning broadcaster, I’m a Queen’s Counsel. You think your experiences are anything compared to mine? Just shut up!’
Sadly, the former Tory minister neglected to mention, in the now notorious tape-recorded dispute over taxi navigation (which became public this week), his most famous achievement: becoming a national joke. The date he was elevated to this status was July 24, 1992. The location was Thistle Cottage, his parents-in-law’s Sussex home. The occasion? A photo-shoot in which he co-opted them, along with his wife, Judith, and two small children, into a display of family unity.
Five days earlier, the gap-toothed ‘Minister for Fun’ had been splashed across the front pages after it was revealed that he had conducted a three-month extra-marital affair with Antonia de Sancha, a jobbing actress who, at 31, was 12 years his junior.
Their liaisons had taken place at a tatty rented flat in London’s Earl’s Court, where Mellor stayed overnight, sleeping on a crumpled mattress surrounded by half-empty champagne and brandy bottles.
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Show of unity: David Mellor poses for the infamous 1992 'five-bar-gate' photocall with wife Judith (far right), their two sons Frederick and Anthony (centre, left and right respectively) and his parents-in-law Edward (far left) and Joan Hall (second from right)
In a tape-recorded conversation with his paramour, obtained by a Sunday newspaper, the Cabinet minister even
admitted that their bedroom gymnastics had left him too worn-out to write two important speeches.
‘You have absolutely exhausted me,’ he told de Sancha. ‘I feel seriously knackered... I don’t think I could have slept for more than an hour.’
With his floppy hair, pudgy build and shiny face, Mellor made an unlikely lothario. And tawdry details of their affair, including claims of hanky-panky in a Chelsea FC shirt — later revealed to have been fabricated by de Sancha’s PR man, the notorious Max Clifford — titillated the public for months.
In the corridors of power, the scandal was meanwhile thrown to the centre of a serious political debate. The reason was simple: as Secretary of State in John Major’s newly created Department for National Heritage, Mellor was responsible for overseeing the media. And in that capacity, he appeared to support draconian new regulation of the Press.
Britain was at the time digesting the impact of an earlier version of the Leveson scrutiny of newspaper standards, the Calcutt Report. And Mellor had recently given a series of interviews criticising newspaper coverage of the private lives of public figures.
‘The Press — the Popular Press — is drinking in the Last-Chance Saloon,’ he said in one, calling for the ‘sacred cow’ of press freedom to be curtailed.
News of Mellor’s infidelity, therefore, had consequences. It gave the impression that he, like so many members of the ruling class who call for curbs on the investigative media, had been motivated by a cynical desire to protect skeletons which lurked in his own closet.
Despite this inconvenient fact, not to mention the related issue that Mellor’s Conservative Party purported to endorse a much-mocked ‘back to basics’ ‘family values’ policy, John Major preposterously insisted his minister could still oversee Press regulation. Indeed, Mellor clung onto his Cabinet role for another two months, and was forced to quit only after becoming caught up in a second high-profile scandal.
This time, it involved a libel case brought by the socialite Mona Bauwens, daughter of a leading official in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, against the Sunday People.
Actress Antonia de Sancha (pictured in 1992) today sells exotic fabrics and lives near Notting Hill
Ms Bauwens went to court in September 1992 seeking damages over an article claiming that she had hosted Mellor — then a noted critic of Israel — and his family on a Spanish villa holiday in 1990.
During the trial, which ended with a hung jury, it emerged that Mellor had accepted free flights on the jaunt from a different Palestinian organisation. This had not been declared, an apparent breach of ministerial guidelines (which, of course, had come to light thanks to the inquisitive Press).
Having been ridiculed by the Sunday People’s barrister George Carman for having ‘put his head in the sand, thereby exposing his thinking parts’ during the beach holiday, Mellor quit the Cabinet.
Again, the MP for Putney’s long-suffering wife, Judith, stuck by him: ‘I am just very, very sad that someone with such ability is not able to serve his country in the way he can do best,’ she told reporters on the day of his resignation.
Her loyalty was not repaid. Two years later, the philanderer got wind that another Sunday newspaper was about to make public his affair with the wife of an old friend, Lady Cobham.
On November 6, 1994, Mellor issued a statement announcing he was to divorce after 20 years of marriage, and was now ‘extremely close’ to his new paramour. Later that night, when a reporter asked if he had treated Judith badly, he responded: ‘You are a pompous prat.’
Many chuckled at the hypocrisy, not to mention the mockery it made of his earlier family photo-shoot. To this day, a ‘five-bar-gate’ moment remains popular slang for displays of shameless hubris by self-serving politicans.
However, Mellor, who has devoted much of his time since leaving the Cabinet to hugely lucrative business opportunities in the Middle East, seems to have little concern for what others think of him.
A couple of years back, Mellor was secretly recorded yelling abuse at a ‘fat b*****d’ chef while complaining about noise from a restaurant near to his £8million riverside home in Central London. ‘F*** off and do your £10-an-hour job somewhere else,’ he said.
That comment, not to mention his more recent charm offensive in a black cab, betrays his contempt for the common man. But Mellor’s treatment of those nearest to him is perhaps more telling...
The wife he betrayed and then dumped
Judith Mellor these days makes do with a modest bungalow in South-West London
While her wealthy ex-husband swanks around a Georgian residence in the shadow of Tower Bridge, Judith Mellor these days makes do with a bungalow in South-West London. The modest home, purchased with cash following her 1995 divorce, was built in the garden of a post-war property a short walk from Mortlake station.
Despite the shabby way he treated her, Mrs Mellor, now 65, has always resisted any temptation to publicly criticise David. However, she is known to have been privately supportive towards a number of other victims of philandering politicians.
In 2001, for example, the wife of Labour Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said she’d received a ‘very nice commiserating letter’ from Judith when her husband left her for his secretary.
Judith first met David when both were training to become lawyers in the Seventies, but sacrificed her legal career to bring up their children.
She has from a relatively young age suffered from a degenerative eye disease, which by the mid-Nineties saw her register as officially blind. Notwithstanding the disability, she has devoted recent years to charitable work, serving as a trustee of several theatre and non-profit-making organisations.
She is not known to have forged a long-term relationship after her divorce, and was awarded the OBE in 2008 for services to the arts and voluntary sectors.
The father-in-law he tore a strip off
Surely, no one was more rightly outraged by Mellor’s infidelity than his father-in-law, Professor Edward Hall.
On the morning the affair hit the front pages, the retired scientist told a journalist: ‘When people get married, they make marriage vows and I expect them to keep them. If anyone breaks the most sacred vows he ever makes in his life, he might break a few other sacred vows, such as [to] the Privy Council.’
In the wake of the Mellor cheating scandal, his father-in-law Professor Edward Hall (pictured) told a journalist: 'If anyone breaks the most sacred vows he ever makes in his life, he might break a few other sacred vows, such as to the Privy Council'
His comments were published under the headline: ‘If he’ll cheat on my daughter, he’ll cheat on the country.’ Prof Hall, then 75, swiftly received a phone call from what he described as a ‘ranting’ Mellor. He claimed his son-in-law threatened to withdraw access to his grandchildren if he spoke to the media again.
The politician denied issuing such a threat, but the following day’s papers ran ‘Bully Boy’ headlines nonetheless.
By the end of the week, relations had been repaired and the two men posed together for their famous family photograph.
‘I have been given a bit of a going over for talking to the press and I would rather not say anything more,’ Prof Hall told reporters.
He kept silent on the matter until his death in 2002.
The mother-in-law who bit back at him
Defending her daughter, Judith, Mellor’s mother-in-law Joan Hall said about the affair: ‘She is completely distraught about the whole business. I asked her if she knew this woman [Antonia de Sancha]. She said that in view of the fact she is 6ft tall, she is sure she would have remembered if they had met.’
As to David Mellor’s reaction to the scandal, Mrs Hall added: ‘It seems he is spending this week trying to save his job. I think he should be at home trying to save his marriage.’ Mrs Hall died in 2005.
The son who became a showbiz PR man
Frederick, now aged 30, now works for a show business PR agency
Having learned about PR disasters the hard way, Mellor’s 30-year-old son Frederick now makes a living helping celebrities avoid the pitfalls that befell his father.
A well-spoken Old Boy of Charterhouse, the £34,000-a-year Surrey boarding school, he has since 2006 worked for showbusiness PR agency MBC, which represents the likes of former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, TV star Graham Norton, rocker Lenny Kravitz and comedian Russell Brand.
Listed on the company’s website as ‘Fred’, he’s known as ‘Freddie’ by a posh circle of friends — including singer Bryan Ferry’s son, Otis, and Lord Attenborough’s actor grandson, Sam Holland, whose wedding (Fred was best man) was attended by Pippa Middleton. Ironically, the keen Chelsea fan’s employer represents the comedian David Walliams, who once mercilessly satirised David Mellor’s ‘five-bar-gate’ moment on his TV show Little Britain.
The son who became an investment guru
Anthony Mellor was a 14-year-old pupil at the highly academic West London public school St Paul’s when his parents separated in 1994.
He spent most of his teenage years living with his mother in Mortlake, but is said to remain close to his father.
Until recently, he was listed as a director of MGW Partners, a firm in which David also has a key role. It claims to help ‘high net worth’ individuals find ‘unique investment opportunities’ in the Middle East and China.
Anthony Mellor (pictured) remains close to his father. He was only 14 when his parents separated and until recently was listed as a director of MGW Partners, which claims to help individuals invest in the Middle East
The lover forever tainted by scandal
Antonia De Sancha (pictured as a 31-year-old when news of the scandal broke), claims Mr Mellor always had a 'slight air of superiority'
Vilified as the ‘other woman’, a 31-year-old Antonia de Sancha suffered immediate collateral damage after her affair with Mellor was revealed.
Multiple ‘friends’ of the boarding school-educated actress sold interviews revealing that she had, among other things, once worked as a waitress in a hostess bar and a receptionist at an escort agency.
Topless photographs, taken for her acting portfolio, emerged, along with the revelation that she’d once appeared in a 30-minute soft-porn film called The Pieman, playing a one-legged prostitute seduced by a pizza delivery boy.
After weeks of intense media pressure, and with her acting career in tatters, she reluctantly agreed to sell an interview about her relationship with Mellor to The Sun for a reported £35,000. Today, de Sancha, 53, lives near Notting Hill, West London, and imports and sells exotic fabrics.
‘David always had a slight air of superiority,’ she told the Mail with regard to this week’s controversy. ‘He had clearly had a lengthy lunch [before the taxi row] and he loves fine wines.
‘But we have all said things that we wish we had not. Unfortunately, it happens to the best of us. I am sure he regrets what he said to the taxi driver.’
The quango queen who ditched a Lord
Born a commoner, Penny Ann Cooper married Lord Cobham in 1974 and became a Viscountess on the death of her father-in-law three years later.
She immediately set about regularising her wealthy husband’s finances, auctioning off 700 years of family archives for £164,000, selling Necker Island (then almost completely undeveloped) in the Caribbean to a young Richard Branson for £180,000, and turning their home at Hagley Hall in the West Midlands into a conference centre.
Mr Mellor pictured with Lady Cobham following the investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace a week ago
Later an adviser to Mellor at the Department of National Heritage (before she also became his mistress), she has been widely dubbed ‘the Quango Queen’ because of her vast number of directorships and trusteeships and has, since 2009, chaired Visit England.
She has no children, and despite having been in a relationship with Mellor for almost 20 years, has resisted the temptation to marry him — a move which would require her to forfeit the title Lady Cobham.
Though occasionally accused of pomposity, Lady Cobham (pictured with Mellor) is not without a self-deprecating sense of humour. Last year, she sent friends a personalised Christmas card depicting her sitting next to a giraffe. It carried the caption: ‘Penny has run off with the good-looking man this time!’
The cuckolded friend who was left suicidal
Lord Cobham was left contemplating suicide after he was cuckolded and forced to pay £1million in a divorce settlement
On November 6, 1994, Lord Cobham was woken by his wife, Penny, bearing a cup of tea and an important message: she was leaving him for David Mellor.
The news was particularly galling since he had regarded the politician as a friend. Mellor often attended cricket games as a guest of Cobham, and his family had stayed at Hagley Hall during the 1992 brouhaha over de Sancha.
In addition to the humiliation of being cuckolded, Lord Cobham was required to pay Penny £1million as part of their divorce settlement. To raise the money, he was forced to sell a number of family heirlooms.
The experience left him contemplating suicide. In a 2000 interview, he recalled sitting in his living room with a loaded shotgun, weighing up whether to end his life. ‘It was a combination of sadness and disgrace. I was close to doing it.’
Apropos of Mellor, he added: ‘Bearing in mind that he took my hospitality while having an affair with my wife, I feel aggrieved.
‘Unlike most people who know they have done wrong and can say sorry, he suffers from moral dyslexia. There was no regret or shame — just business as usual.’ Cobham died in Spain in 2006.
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