The Woman Who Got Chumped, Went to Law School, and Sued Her Ex

Varsha Gohil divorced her husband for infidelity, and when he hid assets, she went to law school and sued her ex for everything he was hiding. It took 23 years to get a fair settlement, in the UK’s longest divorce battle. But she won and her case changed legal precedent.

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I would like to nominate Varsha Gohil for the Mighty Hall of Fame. Do you need a karma story shot into your veins? A new goddess to worship? The knowledge that some chump somewhere saw justice? This is your Tuesday column.

Varsha did what many of us do when we discover a spouse has been cheating: She got divorced.

But then her husband did something else that is depressingly familiar to anyone who has ever dealt with a FW in a high-conflict divorce.

He lied.

Not just about the affair. He lied about the money.

Her husband, solicitor Bhadresh Gohil, told Varsha and the court he was broke, when in fact, he was hiding millions. As a young mother with three children, she’d let him handle the money, but she knew they weren’t broke. But she was in a family court system where she couldn’t prove it. All she could do was document her suspicions in the order and get on with her life.

So in 2004, Varsha accepted a settlement of £270,000 and a Peugeot (the family car).

But her suspicions remained that her FW was hiding money.

She followed the money

In 2007, Varsha went back to court, arguing that her husband had fraudulently concealed assets.

And then because these freaks don’t get character transplants, you may not be surprised to learn that her ex-husband went to jail.

Bhadresh was investigated and convicted of money laundering, fraud and forgery. He was sentenced to ten years in prison and his assets were frozen. About £28 million, spread through complicated corporate structures and multiple jurisdictions.

Suddenly, Varsha’s “I don’t think he’s telling the truth about the money” looked considerably less like a woman scorned. And more like a woman telling the truth about her FW and not being believed for years.

But because Varsha is a total badass in the Mighty Chump Hall of Fame, she knew no one was going to fix this for her. So, she saved herself.

She went to law school.

Think about that, while raising three kids, she earned a law degree and represented herself in court chasing down the stolen money. (The assets that were legit, which were still in the millions.)

Her first big win

In 2012, a judge ruled in Varsha’s favor and set aside the original financial order because of the non-disclosure.

Her ex appealed.

The Court of Appeal overturned that decision. So Varsha appealed again. All the way to the UK Supreme Court.

In 2015, the Supreme Court unanimously sided with her.

The court restored the decision allowing her to challenge the original settlement because of her husband’s fraudulent non-disclosure.

And the Supreme Court made an important point.

The obligation to be truthful about your finances in a divorce isn’t merely some nice ethical suggestion between two ex-spouses.

You owe the court full and frank disclosure.

In other words, you can’t get out of telling the truth about your assets by making the other spouse suspicious, exhausted, desperate for the divorce to be over, or willing to sign an agreement just to make the litigation STOP.

And if the settlement was based on fraudulent non-disclosure, the court can set it aside.

This was a huge win, not just for Varsha, but for everyone divorcing a FW in the UK.

But her fight wasn’t over

Winning at the Supreme Court wasn’t the end of it. The case dragged on for YEARS. With criminal proceedings. Asset confiscation proceedings. Arguments over which assets were legitimate marital assets and which were connected to criminal activity.

It didn’t break her. She kept going.

FOR 23 YEARS.

Finally, in the latest round, the High Court determined that Varsha was entitled to £6.6 million from the assets that could properly be treated as legitimate marital wealth. The Court of Appeal subsequently refused permission for further appeals.

So let’s recap.

She originally got:

£270,000 and a Peugeot.

She ultimately received:

£6.6 million.

And more importantly, she set a legal precedent for family law.

Cheaters, meet consequences

There is something deeply satisfying about this story because FWs tend to rely on the same basic strategy:

Wear the chump down. Lie. Make everything complicated. Insist that the other person doesn’t understand the finances. Move the goalposts. Say the money isn’t really yours. Claim the account belongs to someone else..

And then wait until the chump gets exhausted. Or impoverished. Or both.

And that’s often the point.

The cheater doesn’t necessarily have to prove the lie.

They just have to make discovering the truth sufficiently expensive, confusing and exhausting that you give up.

Varsha Gohil didn’t give up.

She went to law school and got the burden of proof changed.

Varsha didn’t single-handedly write a new British statute saying, “Thou shalt not hide money from your ex.”

The duty of full and frank financial disclosure already existed.

What her case did was establish a powerful precedent about what happens when someone fraudulently fails to disclose assets.

The Supreme Court made clear that the usual rules about “fresh evidence” on appeal did not prevent a spouse from asking the court to set aside a financial order because of fraudulent non-disclosure. It also rejected the idea that a spouse’s recorded doubts about the other’s disclosure somehow excused the other spouse’s obligation to tell the truth.

That matters.

Because a dishonest spouse cannot reasonably argue:

“Well, she suspected I was lying, so she should have figured it out.”

No.

The burden of disclosure is on the person who has the assets.

You don’t get to hide the money and then blame your ex for failing to discover the hiding place.

23 years is an obscenely long time to wait for justice.

She could’ve used that money when her children were growing up. To pay for school. Or a well-deserved vacation. Varsha was 37 when she filed for divorce. She’s 61 now.

And yet she kept going. For years. Never knowing if she would win.

I would never wish 23 years of litigation on anyone. But there’s something incredibly powerful about a woman who was told “Take this deal and go away.” And then didn’t.

Instead she proved her case and got justice.

Somewhere in Britain, some FW is trying to screw their chump out of a settlement. Siphon money off to a Schmoopie. Work under the table. Lie about their accounts.

And they’ll be thwarted because of Varsha’s 23 years of labor.