The wife of British boxing champion Frank Bruno was granted a divorce in London on Tuesday on the grounds of her husband’s “unreasonable behaviour”. Neither Frank nor his ex-wife Laura were on hand at the High Court Family Division for the uncontested proceedings which brought an end to their 11-year union.
“The respondent’s behaviour has made me anxious and depressed and I have been prescribed anti-depressants,” 42-year-old Laura Mooney had alleged in court documents. And while the former WBC heavyweight champion did not challenge the divorce, he offered these words in a handwritten note to the court: “Although I am not defending the divorce, I don’t accept that my behaviour has been the cause of the marital breakdown.”
The terse statements are a far cry from their much-publicised fairy-tale wedding. More than 1,000 fans turned out as the two walked down the aisle more than a decage ago at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Essex. The pair seemed to enjoy a happy marriage over the years, living with their three children in a massive estate near Brentwood. Cracks began to show in 1997, however, when Laura secured a court order banning the boxing champ from “assaulting, molesting or harassing” her.
The two hoped to work through their differences, and in early 2001 the relationship seemed to be on the mend. “I am the sort of person who gives 210 per cent to whatever I care about,” Frank said in a newspaper interview. “At one time I put all my energies into boxing. Now I put it into my marriage.” However, a reconciliation was not on the cards.
Frank, 39, publicly aired his marriage woes during an episode of Celebrity Sleepover this summer, saying: “I wish I was still boxing now to be quite honest, rather than stay at home and listen to moaning, moaning, moaning. I just wanted to get out of the house, away from all the hysterics and nagging all the time.”
Frank and Laura met at an ice rink in 1980 and lived together for a number of years before marrying in 1990.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
