Dear FishHeads, Freaks, fans and the Company,

It has been a tough couple of days for myself and Katie as we have been dealing with the fallout from the article in the News of the World.
I admit to having raged on reading what I considered was a very unbalanced and exaggerated disclosure which was badly written and contained a number of general factual errors that could have been easily rectified with due diligence and without my input.

I had known about the existence but not the content of the article for quite a few weeks and it had originally been scheduled to be printed two weeks before our wedding.

I had been suspicious when I received yet another unwanted phone call from my ex wife in early May asking me for verification on a number of events concerning incidents in our marriage. I only took the call as she mentioned it had to do with our daughter. She was obviously drunk and kept returning to specific themes which were in the most nonsensical. I asked if the call was being recorded or if someone was listening in to the conversation. She denied both. When she began raving down the line I terminated the call.

A few days after a friend of mine told me that he had been contacted by the News of the World to verify some information.
I soon discovered that the thrust of the piece was on domestic violence and was wrapped up in a "sex, drugs and rock and roll" story which had been sold to the newspaper by my ex wife.

It didn't come as much of a surprise as I had been expecting such a move for quite a while and with an impending marriage the timing was cynical, malicious and deliberately intended to be hurtful.

My ex wife had moved back to Haddington in December 2007 soon after her second husband was imprisoned on drug offences.
She left me in 2001 for another man in Berlin when I was £900,000 in debt and close to bankruptcy.
She was returning when I had cleared all my debts and established a new home and was still recovering from the debacle of the Summer of 2007.

Tara had gone to Berlin with her mother in 2001 as I was unable to look after her while I attempted sort out the financial mess I had been left with through perpetual touring. During the 4 years our daughter was in Berlin I financially supported her and bailed out my ex wife on a number of occasions despite my own problems. Tara returned to Scotland in 2005 to live with me.

Returning in 2007 for our daughter's sake was not, it appeared, the principal reason and before she came over I made her very aware that I had no interest in rekindling any sort of relationship and that I did not welcome her presence in Haddington.

During 2008 my relationship with our daughter deteriorated as her mother became more influential resulting in a number of major arguments that came to a head with Tara leaving home in November. The disruption caused by my ex wife was no coincidence as I by then was involved in a relationship which was obviously special.

Although I am currently estranged from our daughter I was sad to read the version of events in the NOTW article as related by my ex wife.
I strongly disagree with what was said and as with a number of incidents mentioned in the article there are witnesses who have a very different perspective on what happened.

In saying all that I have no intention of taking legal action against the News of the World over this article.
I do not believe that bringing my 18 year old daughter into a wrangle between my ex wife and myself is a decent or adult approach and as my daughter is attempting to sort her own life out at the moment she does not need the emotional trauma of being asked to testify against her parents in a court case or exposed to a tit-for-tat newspaper war which would benefit no one except the publishers.

Judging by the standard of journalism exhibited in most scandal sheets I would never trust my side of the story to be properly represented and have also decided not to retaliate on the same low despicable level as employed by my ex wife.
I was asked to be interviewed and was "door stepped" by the journalist in question for my responses to the accusations. I refused as it would only have given more credence to the article and made my ex wife's claims appear genuine.
I will deal with the history of events from my perspective in my book in a less sensational manner and will readily document my part in what became a dark travesty of a marriage.

I am no angel and did more than my fair share of "sex, drugs and rock and roll". Nobody died!
I have never been warned, arrested or charged with any count of violence and in my divorce there was no mention of domestic violence.

However, I am not the devil portrayed in the article by a sad, bitter woman who resents my current happiness with Katie and who has gone out of her way to disrupt our lives and cause as much pain as possible through using our own daughter against us.

Retribution?
I'll just leave it to Karma.


Fish

copyright Derek Dick 2009