Judge tells escort who married 64-year-old to ‘get a job’ in alimony case

An escort who married a man more than twice her age has reportedly had her alimony claim rejected and been told to get a job, after telling the court that her much-older husband “repulsed” her “in every way”.

The Courier Mail and other media outlets reported that the former prostitute, known by the pseudonym Ms Higgins, was also ordered to pay back $180,000, after her husband, identified only as Mr Higgins, funded her luxury lifestyle for years.

The couple met when the Queensland businessman hired her for a night in 2006, paying a reported $1,500. At the time, the woman was 31 and the man was 64. They embarked on a ‘friendship’ in which she no longer charged him an hourly fee, and even married six years later, but never lived together, which Judge Paul Cronin described as “unusual, if not unique’’.

What was more unique, perhaps, was that despite being married to the older man, the court heard the woman continued to live with another man, who was the father of her young daughter.

During the relationship, however, the businessman paid her rent, for Botox treatments, clothes and shoes, and even contributed towards a boob job, lip injections and her daughter’s school fees. He also followed through on a promise to buy her a home, purchasing her a a $1.1 million mansion in Melbourne in 2010.

But the couple split in 2015 and the newspaper said they had been locked in a fierce court battle since that time over whether Mr Higgins should provide his escort wife spousal support. It’s a fight that’s seen some very ugly truths being aired in court, including a claim from the woman that she had only “endured” the marriage because the business had promised her a house.

“He repulsed me in every way,’’ she told Melbourne Family Court. “But the life I led supported my family and I endured what the applicant did to me for the benefit of my (family).’’

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The ‘endurance’ she referred to, she told the court, entailed replying to texts and emails from her husband and buying him gifts with his own credit card, according to a report of the case by the Gatton Star newspaper.

As for her much-older ex husband, he told the court that they had had a “a deep relationship of love and affection” and that he was “content to be generous’’. But after they split, he attempted to have the Melbourne house transferred back into his ownership, while Ms Higgins argued that it should be declared hers, and that she should receive maintenance on top to the tune of more than $8,000 a month.

(She complained that the $470 a week she received from Centrelink wasn’t enough to sustain her weekly living costs of more than $2,600, and that she had no skills to find paid employment other than in escorting, a return to which had been unsuccessful.)

But the judge had some harsh reality for the former prostitute, telling her she could keep the house but that she would have to repay her ex-husband $180,000 and would receive no maintenance. As for finding the money for the repayment, she should rationalise her capital position and live within her means, the judge said – in other words, sell the house.

“There was a curious silence by the respondent about what she could do,” Judge Cronin concluded. “There was nothing said about endeavours to obtain positions that might have been entirely within her skills and capacity, whatever they might be.”

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