When she got married at the age of 32, former It-Girl Lady Isabella Hervey dared to believe that her “fairytale dream of a happy family life” would finally come true. But now, ten years later, it is bitterly clear that it was never more than a mirage.
Her union with the Belgian millionaire Christophe de Pauw heralded the beginning of a descent into a terrible physical and psychological trauma.
The story is revealed in gripping and brutal detail in a 38-page judgment just handed down in a court in Portugal, where Isabella, 42, lives with her three children in the Algarve, by de Pauw: Victor, who is named after her late father, the thrice-married 6th Marquess of Bristol; a youngest son, Patrick; and a daughter, India.
The ruling should bring her some peace of mind, a year after her older sister, Lady Victoria Hervey, 48, drew attention to her plight by posting a series of photos online, all of which showed Isabella with serious facial bruises .
“Christophe has been charged with domestic violence and child abuse,” Isabella’s Portuguese lawyer Patricia Cipriano told me, adding that the judge has issued a restraining order against De Pauw that prohibits him from coming within 300 meters of his estranged wife or their children without seeing a third party. party supervision.
When she got married at the age of 32, former It-Girl Lady Isabella Hervey dared to believe that her “fairytale dream of a happy family life” would finally come true. But now, ten years later, it is bitterly clear that it was never more than a mirage
Her union with Belgian millionaire Christophe de Pauw instead heralded the beginning of a descent into terrible physical and psychological trauma.
When she got married at 32, the one-time It-Girl dared to believe that her “fairytale dream of a happy family life” would finally come true
Isabella tells me: ‘It’s a great relief that the restraining order has been put in place, for me and for my children, because it means we can be in our garden.
‘We used to literally barricade ourselves in our house when we were alone. So now I don’t feel like we’re prisoners in our own home.”
She adds, “But I’m still scared. Restraining order or not, I don’t think that’s enough to stop the guy.
‘So on the one hand I’m relieved, but on the other hand I always remain on my guard. I’m often still scared and don’t go outside with the children after dark.’
It’s a crushing end to Isabella’s hopes for a happy family of her own – hopes that may have been inspired largely by her father’s death just a day after her third birthday.
By the time she met De Pauw through mutual friends in London in 2011, her glamor and athleticism had earned her an appearance on Celebrity Love Island and the honor of being named one of the world’s sexiest women by boys’ magazine FHM.
But this masked the eating disorder bulimia, for which she had just completed three months of treatment.
The court’s verdict shows that De Pauw had also been in treatment for a year for ‘addictive behavior with alcohol and drugs’.
One can only hope that Isabella’s nightmare is now over; her husband declines to comment.