By Patricia Kane
Last updated at 3:50 PM on 27th November 2011
Fresh start: Liz McColgan talks about the heartache behind her public image
Standing facing her husband of 23 years across the courtroom, Olympic medal winner Liz McColgan felt as if she was staring into the eyes of a stranger.
The mother of five listened angrily as Peter McColgan claimed she had assaulted him in front of their children in the family home, and then publicly accused her of being unfaithful in their marriage.
But in just two hours last week, a court would dismiss his allegations after he was branded ‘shifty and conniving’, making up the allegations to ‘ruin’ the retired track star’s coaching career.
For Liz, 47, the outcome was a welcome relief in more ways than one. Not only was her humiliation at standing in the dock over but finally their sham of a marriage was out in the open and there would be no further need to cover up the heartache behind her public image.
Today, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the retired athlete speaks candidly for the first time about the break-up of her marriage and her determination to rebuild her life away from a husband she claims ‘never loved me, only my name and my wealth’.
She also reveals her anger at being treated like a criminal after being arrested over the ‘assault’ on her husband, and of how she hopes now to be given a second chance in love after finding a new partner.
Sitting in the family’s ?750,000 Victorian home close to Carnoustie, near Dundee, she said: ‘Peter is not the person I knew. I thought he was a person who was in love with me, that we had this fantastic life together, but now I know he was with me for the great lifestyle and who I was. I don’t think he ever loved me at all.’
Last year, the couple revealed that their marriage was over and announced their intention to divorce. However, they said they would still live together for the sake of their children Eilish, 21, Martin, 12, Eamonn, 11, Kieran, nine, and Orla, six. The pair would also continue to run their gym business in the grounds of their home.
But the civilised facade was smashed irretrievably in July, when the couple clashed after she received a letter suddenly from Mr McColgan’s lawyer, suggesting they should sell their luxury home.
In court last week, Mr McColgan, a former Northern Ireland steeplechase runner, claimed that in a heated exchange with his wife, he was ‘prodded’ and punched twice on the face by her before she threw his clothes out of a window, in front of their children.
Recalling the events of that night, which would finally end any appearance of a marriage and see Liz arrested the following day, she said: ‘I can never forgive him for putting me and our children through this ordeal.
United: Liz and Peter McColgan with their children in 2008
‘When the lawyer’s letter arrived, I felt sick to my stomach and I jumped into the car from Loughborough, where I was staying with a friend, and drove for six-and-a-half hours home to confront Peter.
‘I remember when I finally got there, he was standing at the cooker and started sniggering when I asked him why he’d had the letter sent. I shoved him to get him to turn round. He says I punched him in front of the kids, which is not true and the court didn’t believe him either.
‘Yes, our kids were upset that night but not because they saw me hitting him. It was because they heard the argument about him wanting the house sold.’ She admits she then asked him to leave the house, and when he refused she threw his clothes out of the window three times – and each time, stubbornly, he retrieved them – before finally departing.
The following afternoon, Liz said, she was playing rounders in the garden with her children when two police officers arrived to arrest her and take her away. She said: ‘At first, I thought someone was going to step in and say they were joking. When I realised they were absolutely serious, all I could think of were the kids and trying to get someone to look after them while I sorted out the mess.
‘But at the station, two officers held me firmly by each hand – they said it was the alternative to handcuffing me – and frogmarched me to a cell.
Relief: Liz was cleared of assaulting Peter but the case was dismissed and he was described him as 'shifty and conniving'
‘I broke down at that point. It was all too much. I was being treated like a criminal for something I hadn’t done. They took off my rings, fingerprinted me and took my photograph. It was unbelievable. After about two hours in the cell, they took me to an interview room where they put all the allegations to me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was like fantasy land. Yes, I shoved him and I shouldn’t have but I certainly didn’t punch him. I said “No comment” to everything they said and I was taken back to the cell.
‘I should have been kept in overnight for a court appearance the next morning but they told me that because of who I was, I was unlikely to flee the country, so they would release me.
‘Looking back, I still find it hard to believe I was arrested on such a trumped-up allegation. I think the police dealt with it really poorly.’
At the end of her trial in Arbroath Sheriff Court, Liz was found not guilty of assault after the sheriff rejected her husband’s evidence.
In court, Mr McColgan admitted using ‘spyware’ to check up on his wife on the social networking site Facebook, and to sending anonymous text messages to her and a man he suspected she was having an affair with.
Prime: Liz during the Grand Prix final at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin
In her statement outside court afterwards, she said: ‘There’s a lot more to this story. It’s been a difficult life with Peter McColgan.’
The truth is darker than many could imagine, as she paints a picture of a man who became obsessive about her success after his own career began to wane and who, she claims, eventually controlled every aspect of her life.
It was only three years ago, Liz says, that she tasted freedom for the first time in her life – when he insisted she return to work after years of concentrating on raising their family.
The pair first met as teenagers in the US, where they were on college athletics scholarships in Alabama. Then, in 1986, their world changed when Dundee-born Elizabeth Lynch became a household name by winning gold in the 10,000 metres at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. She married Peter, her first and only boyfriend, in 1987 in her home city.
She said: ‘We got thrown together because of the environment we found ourselves in. I thought we were in love but I’m not sure now after everything I’ve discovered since. I’m not sure if I ever really knew him at all.’ She went on to win a silver medal for Great Britain at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland in 1990 she retained her 10,000m title.
In 1991, she became the first British woman to hold a world distance title when she won the 10,000m at the World Championships in Tokyo. She also won the New York Marathon that year and was named BBC Sports Personality Of The Year. In 1992 she won the Tokyo Marathon and was awarded an MBE.
Peter retired as a competitor and became her manager. In 1996 she won the London Marathon.
Liz said: ‘All I had to do was concentrate on my training and he did the rest, which is why I never questioned the control he had over my life, until 2008.’
Describing their situation that year as ‘asset rich, cash poor’, Liz said the couple had successfully managed to accumulate more than 40 homes as part of a property company they jointly owned, as well as the health club.
But she said: ‘By 2008, I had retired and was happily bringing up the children. Peter suddenly said we could do with some extra cash going through the business and I needed to get back into sport. I managed to get back on the fringes of coaching and on to GB management teams.
‘Through that, while Peter stayed at home to look after the main business, I was getting involved in a more social scene that he wasn’t part of. I’d be away for about three or four days at competitions and mixing with athletics coaches, some female but mainly male because that’s the reality of the sport.
‘But increasingly it caused friction between us. I’d go away to competitions and didn’t want to come back – to him. It was only the children who made it bearable.’
She added: ‘Throughout my life, I had always been someone who got up to start training at 5am and went to bed at 9pm. But suddenly I had freedom in my life to develop as my own person and I was enjoying it. I came to the realisation I had missed out on a lot. When I was a teenager, I didn’t go to discos or parties. I was always out training. I didn’t even take the time to enjoy my success.
‘I think I am the only person to win BBC Sports Personality Of The Year and not go to the party afterwards because I was training the next day. Even the day I got married I did a 10k run before the ceremony.’
As the McColgans’ marriage continued to deteriorate, the couple began to live separately within the spacious family home. They were rarely in the same room together, never shared family meals, slept in separate rooms and communicated by text message.
She claims her husband began to get suspicious when she started staying up late to chat to her new-found friends on social networking sites. She said: ‘There would be banter between me and them. It was just nonsense as far as I was concerned, a bit tongue-in-cheek. But perhaps some of it did come across as a bit flirty. Unknown to me, Peter had started becoming suspicious and had fitted spyware on the computer to track my conversations.
‘I have to confess I did tell one coach that I was not happy in my marriage. Soon afterwards, Peter began to accuse me of having an affair. It was an absolute lie but nothing I said made him believe me. The arguments got worse.’
It was then she discovered she was being ‘stalked’ – receiving threatening text messages from an anonymous source. In court, Mr McColgan was exposed as the phantom texter who had bought a mobile phone for this purpose. Each time Liz confronted her husband, he denied he was behind the harassment, yet the texts were from someone who clearly knew her movements. In the bar with the other coaches, she would suddenly get a text, accusing her of being with other men and asking if her husband knew.
Success: After victory in the World Championships in 1991
One message said: ‘What would your hubby think of what you’re doing?’ The other male coach, facing marriage problems of his own, would receive a similar text.
As the McColgans’ marriage continued to deteriorate, the couple began to live separately within the spacious family home. They were rarely in the same room together, never shared family meals, slept in separate rooms and communicated by text message.
Increasingly suspicious that Peter was her ‘stalker’, she confided in a male friend, who also coached on the athletics circuit. She denies having an affair, saying the relationship became serious only after her marriage was over.
Realising the marriage was at an end, the couple agreed to take a year to try amicably to sort out their personal situation and their businesses. She says: ‘I thought we were managing to do that until seven months down the line I got the letter seeking the sale of our home.’
She says by that point they were each seeing other people. But she adds: ‘I didn’t leave Peter to be with someone else. I left him to get out of the poisonous situation we were in.’
She declines to reveal her new partner’s identity but says his marriage is ‘now over too’ and that they are ‘taking things slowly’.
Divorce is now looming, but she says the future holds no fears. Suddenly laughing, she says: ‘I’m in a happier place already. I just want to be with my kids. We are going to have a better environment at home and a happier mum. They can see the difference already.
‘I never in a million years envisaged going through what I have done but I was very, very unhappy and I’ve come to the realisation it’s never too late to start over again.’
Last night, Mr McColgan declined to comment.
Last updated at 3:50 PM on 27th November 2011
Fresh start: Liz McColgan talks about the heartache behind her public image
The mother of five listened angrily as Peter McColgan claimed she had assaulted him in front of their children in the family home, and then publicly accused her of being unfaithful in their marriage.
But in just two hours last week, a court would dismiss his allegations after he was branded ‘shifty and conniving’, making up the allegations to ‘ruin’ the retired track star’s coaching career.
For Liz, 47, the outcome was a welcome relief in more ways than one. Not only was her humiliation at standing in the dock over but finally their sham of a marriage was out in the open and there would be no further need to cover up the heartache behind her public image.
She also reveals her anger at being treated like a criminal after being arrested over the ‘assault’ on her husband, and of how she hopes now to be given a second chance in love after finding a new partner.
Sitting in the family’s ?750,000 Victorian home close to Carnoustie, near Dundee, she said: ‘Peter is not the person I knew. I thought he was a person who was in love with me, that we had this fantastic life together, but now I know he was with me for the great lifestyle and who I was. I don’t think he ever loved me at all.’
But the civilised facade was smashed irretrievably in July, when the couple clashed after she received a letter suddenly from Mr McColgan’s lawyer, suggesting they should sell their luxury home.
In court last week, Mr McColgan, a former Northern Ireland steeplechase runner, claimed that in a heated exchange with his wife, he was ‘prodded’ and punched twice on the face by her before she threw his clothes out of a window, in front of their children.
Recalling the events of that night, which would finally end any appearance of a marriage and see Liz arrested the following day, she said: ‘I can never forgive him for putting me and our children through this ordeal.
United: Liz and Peter McColgan with their children in 2008
‘When the lawyer’s letter arrived, I felt sick to my stomach and I jumped into the car from Loughborough, where I was staying with a friend, and drove for six-and-a-half hours home to confront Peter.
‘I remember when I finally got there, he was standing at the cooker and started sniggering when I asked him why he’d had the letter sent. I shoved him to get him to turn round. He says I punched him in front of the kids, which is not true and the court didn’t believe him either.
‘Yes, our kids were upset that night but not because they saw me hitting him. It was because they heard the argument about him wanting the house sold.’ She admits she then asked him to leave the house, and when he refused she threw his clothes out of the window three times – and each time, stubbornly, he retrieved them – before finally departing.
The following afternoon, Liz said, she was playing rounders in the garden with her children when two police officers arrived to arrest her and take her away. She said: ‘At first, I thought someone was going to step in and say they were joking. When I realised they were absolutely serious, all I could think of were the kids and trying to get someone to look after them while I sorted out the mess.
‘But at the station, two officers held me firmly by each hand – they said it was the alternative to handcuffing me – and frogmarched me to a cell.
Relief: Liz was cleared of assaulting Peter but the case was dismissed and he was described him as 'shifty and conniving'
‘I broke down at that point. It was all too much. I was being treated like a criminal for something I hadn’t done. They took off my rings, fingerprinted me and took my photograph. It was unbelievable. After about two hours in the cell, they took me to an interview room where they put all the allegations to me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was like fantasy land. Yes, I shoved him and I shouldn’t have but I certainly didn’t punch him. I said “No comment” to everything they said and I was taken back to the cell.
‘I should have been kept in overnight for a court appearance the next morning but they told me that because of who I was, I was unlikely to flee the country, so they would release me.
‘Looking back, I still find it hard to believe I was arrested on such a trumped-up allegation. I think the police dealt with it really poorly.’
At the end of her trial in Arbroath Sheriff Court, Liz was found not guilty of assault after the sheriff rejected her husband’s evidence.
In court, Mr McColgan admitted using ‘spyware’ to check up on his wife on the social networking site Facebook, and to sending anonymous text messages to her and a man he suspected she was having an affair with.
Prime: Liz during the Grand Prix final at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin
In her statement outside court afterwards, she said: ‘There’s a lot more to this story. It’s been a difficult life with Peter McColgan.’
The truth is darker than many could imagine, as she paints a picture of a man who became obsessive about her success after his own career began to wane and who, she claims, eventually controlled every aspect of her life.
It was only three years ago, Liz says, that she tasted freedom for the first time in her life – when he insisted she return to work after years of concentrating on raising their family.
The pair first met as teenagers in the US, where they were on college athletics scholarships in Alabama. Then, in 1986, their world changed when Dundee-born Elizabeth Lynch became a household name by winning gold in the 10,000 metres at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. She married Peter, her first and only boyfriend, in 1987 in her home city.
She said: ‘We got thrown together because of the environment we found ourselves in. I thought we were in love but I’m not sure now after everything I’ve discovered since. I’m not sure if I ever really knew him at all.’ She went on to win a silver medal for Great Britain at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland in 1990 she retained her 10,000m title.
In 1991, she became the first British woman to hold a world distance title when she won the 10,000m at the World Championships in Tokyo. She also won the New York Marathon that year and was named BBC Sports Personality Of The Year. In 1992 she won the Tokyo Marathon and was awarded an MBE.
Peter retired as a competitor and became her manager. In 1996 she won the London Marathon.
Liz said: ‘All I had to do was concentrate on my training and he did the rest, which is why I never questioned the control he had over my life, until 2008.’
Describing their situation that year as ‘asset rich, cash poor’, Liz said the couple had successfully managed to accumulate more than 40 homes as part of a property company they jointly owned, as well as the health club.
But she said: ‘By 2008, I had retired and was happily bringing up the children. Peter suddenly said we could do with some extra cash going through the business and I needed to get back into sport. I managed to get back on the fringes of coaching and on to GB management teams.
‘Through that, while Peter stayed at home to look after the main business, I was getting involved in a more social scene that he wasn’t part of. I’d be away for about three or four days at competitions and mixing with athletics coaches, some female but mainly male because that’s the reality of the sport.
‘But increasingly it caused friction between us. I’d go away to competitions and didn’t want to come back – to him. It was only the children who made it bearable.’
She added: ‘Throughout my life, I had always been someone who got up to start training at 5am and went to bed at 9pm. But suddenly I had freedom in my life to develop as my own person and I was enjoying it. I came to the realisation I had missed out on a lot. When I was a teenager, I didn’t go to discos or parties. I was always out training. I didn’t even take the time to enjoy my success.
‘I think I am the only person to win BBC Sports Personality Of The Year and not go to the party afterwards because I was training the next day. Even the day I got married I did a 10k run before the ceremony.’
As the McColgans’ marriage continued to deteriorate, the couple began to live separately within the spacious family home. They were rarely in the same room together, never shared family meals, slept in separate rooms and communicated by text message.
She claims her husband began to get suspicious when she started staying up late to chat to her new-found friends on social networking sites. She said: ‘There would be banter between me and them. It was just nonsense as far as I was concerned, a bit tongue-in-cheek. But perhaps some of it did come across as a bit flirty. Unknown to me, Peter had started becoming suspicious and had fitted spyware on the computer to track my conversations.
‘I have to confess I did tell one coach that I was not happy in my marriage. Soon afterwards, Peter began to accuse me of having an affair. It was an absolute lie but nothing I said made him believe me. The arguments got worse.’
It was then she discovered she was being ‘stalked’ – receiving threatening text messages from an anonymous source. In court, Mr McColgan was exposed as the phantom texter who had bought a mobile phone for this purpose. Each time Liz confronted her husband, he denied he was behind the harassment, yet the texts were from someone who clearly knew her movements. In the bar with the other coaches, she would suddenly get a text, accusing her of being with other men and asking if her husband knew.
Success: After victory in the World Championships in 1991
One message said: ‘What would your hubby think of what you’re doing?’ The other male coach, facing marriage problems of his own, would receive a similar text.
As the McColgans’ marriage continued to deteriorate, the couple began to live separately within the spacious family home. They were rarely in the same room together, never shared family meals, slept in separate rooms and communicated by text message.
Increasingly suspicious that Peter was her ‘stalker’, she confided in a male friend, who also coached on the athletics circuit. She denies having an affair, saying the relationship became serious only after her marriage was over.
Realising the marriage was at an end, the couple agreed to take a year to try amicably to sort out their personal situation and their businesses. She says: ‘I thought we were managing to do that until seven months down the line I got the letter seeking the sale of our home.’
She says by that point they were each seeing other people. But she adds: ‘I didn’t leave Peter to be with someone else. I left him to get out of the poisonous situation we were in.’
She declines to reveal her new partner’s identity but says his marriage is ‘now over too’ and that they are ‘taking things slowly’.
Divorce is now looming, but she says the future holds no fears. Suddenly laughing, she says: ‘I’m in a happier place already. I just want to be with my kids. We are going to have a better environment at home and a happier mum. They can see the difference already.
‘I never in a million years envisaged going through what I have done but I was very, very unhappy and I’ve come to the realisation it’s never too late to start over again.’
Last night, Mr McColgan declined to comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment