Click here to view Gary Dean's website

When a prominent businessman and friend of the stars divorced the mother of his four children, local gossips said that the mean old skinflint had fleeced her to pursue his champagne lifestyle.

Fed up with the malicious rumours, Gary Dean decided that the only way to silence his critics was to post the details of his wife’s £3.7 million settlement on the internet. Now the whole world can learn about Helen Dean’s jewellery, watches, two fast cars with personal numberplates and private school fees for the children.

“If I lived in a city like London, Manchester or Birmingham, where there are a lot of wealthy people, the type of money I have earned would mean nothing,” Mr Dean, 47, told The Times yesterday. “When you live in a small area it’s almost like living in a goldfish bowl. This is why tongues wag. It’s like Coronation Street.”

Home for Mr Dean, a publishing entrepreneur, and his wife was a £2 million country house in Fylde, the rural backwater around Blackpool. They were married for 20 years.

“I’ve nothing bad to say about her,” he said. “We changed and things changed. I’ve absolutely no bitterness. We just grew apart. I’ve got a partner, she has a new partner.”

He may be unfamiliar on the national stage but Mr Dean is Alist in Fylde. His website brims with photos of him rubbing shoulders with the likes of Keith Harris and Orville, Roy “Chubby” Brown and the Grumbleweeds. He is often pictured in the local press doing cheque presentations for charity and dipped into his pockets to save the Christmas lights at Poulton-le-Fylde.

Before becoming a salesman, he was a comic and guitarist on the holiday-camp and cruise-ship circuit, where he developed a taste for the high life. The last house he shared with his wife, in the village of St Michaels, suited his aspirations but he said that it was too secluded for Mrs Dean, who is also 47. “She was never happy with the home,” he said.

When they split, she chose to move with the children, aged between 9 and 20, to a modest but comfortable £750,000 detached house with a pond, in a gated community on the outskirts of Blackpool. Mr Dean said: “Helen wanted a house like that. Helen is happy.”

A youth there yesterday, who would not identify himself, barred the driveway and said: “She does not want to talk to anyone.”

Mr Dean is now recreating his old lifestyle, building a 10,000sq ft house that will “have everything: a small lake and tennis court, swimming pool – just like I did in the last house”.

He said: “Everybody is putting two and two together and making five. People are thinking, ‘He must have stuffed her, she must have got nothing’. It just gets to you. I do go out to a lot of places. Things get mentioned. I can just take so much.”

Mr Dean took advice from divorce and libel lawyers and bought the domain name deandivorce.com before posting the details on the web last week. He has heard nothing from his ex-wife but says that the neighbours have been silenced at learning the scale of her divorce settlement. “People’s jaws are dropping,” he said.

Dean v Dean: the truth

I have been subject to gossip about my divorce, some of it just silly tittle-tattle, some malicious. I have been painted in some quarters as a greedy, tight, ruthless b****** who abandoned my wife and children, walking off with millions and leaving my family almost destitute.

I’d much have preferred it all to remain private business between my ex-wife and I: but it hasn’t. Now for all those of you who have wanted to gossip about what I did and did not have to pay - you need speculate no longer.

The divorce settlement

I Gary Dean (The Respondent) to pay and/or give to the Applicant (Helen Louise Dean):

- A CASH LUMP SUM of £3,719,000

- Plus £15,000 per child per annum until the age of 17 years or completion of full-time education

- Plus all private school fees

- Plus all jewellery, diamonds and watches, Mercedes E500, Audi Convertible 3.0 and two personal numberplates

Extracts from deandivorce.com

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