Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) Judge Leicester Adams has ordered that a man forfeit half his wife’s R7m pension during their divorce because he was a ‘bad husband’ during their marriage.

The wife (66) had told the court her husband could keep their matrimonial home, but she wanted his hands off her pension money, says a Pretoria News report.

While the parties were married in 1983 in community of property, the wife claimed a forfeiture of her pension benefits in relation to the husband primarily on the basis that he had grossly misconducted himself during the marriage.

The husband, on the other hand, insisted that there should be a division of the joint estate, including the wife’s pension.

In support of her case, the wife called their four children, now adults, to testify about their father’s conduct. Their evidence was uncontested because the father refused to allow his lawyers to cross-examine the children.

He said he would not allow them to be subjected to the indignity of cross-examination in a fight between himself and his wife.

The husband said it was ‘in bad taste’ that his wife involved their children in their fray.

Adams remarked that the evidence painted a picture of the husband as a bad father and an even worse husband, who treated his wife with little respect and his children with absolute disdain.

According to the Pretoria News, the wife testified that she was the one who had to pay for the household necessities. This was confirmed by the children when they gave evidence.

The wife said the husband did not only financially abuse her over the years, but the verbal, psychological and emotional abuse was even worse, as confirmed by the children.

The judge ruled ‘the defendant was not a good husband’.

‘He failed miserably to discharge his financial duties and his legal duty to support his wife and his children during the marriage. Moreover, he was abusive towards his wife and his children.’

The daughter said that her father often told her she was not his child, implying that the plaintiff had conceived her with another man.

‘The abuse was ongoing and persistent, and it clearly had a lasting effect on the psyche of the children. As I have already indicated, the evidence before me painted a picture of a husband and a father who misconducted himself in the unkindest manner possible towards his family, who ended up living in a cold and loveless household,’ the judge said.

He said that if one were to consider only the interest of the pension in her pension fund, the husband stood to gain R3.7m.

‘I am of the view that such a benefit receivable by the defendant would be undue,’ the judge said.

The court ordered that the husband can keep the house, but it is hands-off his wife’s pension.

Full Pretoria News report in The Star

Judgment