‘My husband took control of my finances and left me penniless and homeless’

Gina now realises her partner trying to isolate her from her support network (Picture: Owner supplied)

Gina Miller was already wealthy and successful when she met her second husband Jon.

Charming, confident and charismatic, he represented everything she wanted in a man and with a daughter from a previous marriage along with a specialist financial services marketing agency, Gina felt Jon was the missing piece to her puzzle.

Jon, who worked in finances, convinced Gina to leave London and move to Wiltshire with him, where they bought a beautiful house for his own three children and her daughter Lucy-Ann.

Gina is no shrinking violet. In 2019 she successfully took the Government to court after Boris Johnson unlawfully suspended parliament ahead of the Brexit deadline, and the company director and activist has set up multiple successful businesses. But through a clever campaign of manipulation and control, Jon managed to take absolute control of Gina’s finances.

Gina trusted Jon implicitly and thought of him as her equal, but the first red flag appeared at their wedding reception in 1998.

‘He started criticising my family and friends and planting seeds,’ she tells Metro over Zoom from her home in London. ‘He told me that they didn’t really love me, they weren’t there to support me, they were critical, they hated John, they didn’t want me happy, they were jealous…’

At first Gina, now 60, dismissed it, but she now realises Jon was trying to isolate her from her support network.

‘It’s quite extraordinary, how completely calculated it was,’ she remarks.

As the months went on, Jon continued to chip away at Gina’s self esteem. She says he criticised what she wore and how she looked, bad mouth her friends and family, and when she did well at work, he ridiculed her.

One one occasion, Gina came home with some good business news about a new contract. ‘He said “Well, you know you’ve only got that because they fancy you.” And he started calling me the “director of lipstick”,’ she remembers.

If she called him up on his behaviour, he would dismiss it as ‘banter’ or say she was being ‘too sensitive’.

From the outside they looked like the perfect blended family, with a beautiful house and state of the art kitchen, but Gina says Jon’s behaviour worsened with time.

‘It was “If you love me, why would you want your own bank account? Why would you want your own savings? Surely we should have everything together in joint names.” That’s how it starts,’ explains Gina.

His behaviour worsened – he began lowering her self-esteem and spiking her drinks (Picture: Owner supplied)

At first she didn’t feel strong enough to challenge him – but then she realised he had forged her signature to take out a loan in her name.

‘It was his son’s birthday. He’d got a bit drunk celebrating and had come home and told me about his new car that I’d paid for.’

But Gina had not bought him a car. The next day she went to the bank who confirmed loan documents had her name signed on them. Jon had forged her signature. Furious, she went home and confronted him.

‘He claimed he didn’t know what I was talking about, that I had got my facts wrong, like I always did. He asked why would he need my money when he had his own? I remember thinking I was going crazy,’ says Gina.

Then he hit her for the first time. Gina found herself lying on the floor with the cold, hard slate pressing against her side. She doesn’t remember the pain, rather the numbness and disassociation.

‘I was so scared. And then there were the apologies: “It was just a mistake. You’ve got to forgive me.” And then that whole cycle of violence and forgiveness starts’, she remembers.

Gina’s memory of that year is foggy, which she now believes is because Jon was spiking her drinks. He was always giving her wine, whether she wanted it or not, and he accused her of having a drinking problem.

‘I can’t remember all the things that happened, but I’d wake up with bruises and not know why. Quite often I’d have a black eye, and I’d spend ages with makeup trying cover it all up. But when you can’t remember, how can you defend yourself? How can you have an argument?’ she says.

Jon told her she’d got drunk and fallen, but her daughter Lucy-Ann, told her she had been pushed down the stairs. (Picture: ©Ian McIlgorm)

Gina tried to leave three times that year and each time Jon convinced her to stay with promises to change. He even threatened to kill himself. Her confidence dwindled and she saw no way out, until one day she woke up bruised, in pain and with no memory.

Jon told her she’d got drunk and fallen, but she was told he had pushed her down the stairs. ‘That was the absolute last straw. I got in my car and left,’ Gina explains.

She withdrew everything her card would allow her – around £200 – and drove to London. Jon immediately froze all her bank cards and with nothing in her own name, three years after they got married, she was left penniless.

After staying at a friend’s house for two weeks, Gina went to London to find somewhere permanent. But with no access to money or paperwork, she was unable to find a rental. She and her daughter ended up sleeping in her car in a Dalston car park for weeks.

‘I was relieved to have escaped. Lucy-Ann found it hard to sleep. She was frightened of all the lights and sounds, and you forget how noisy London is with sirens and police cars. She was terrified, but oddly, I felt safe,’ Gina says.

As she stayed up all night watching over Lucy-Ann snuggled in church-donated blankets, Gina plotted her total separation. She knew she’d have to dissolve her business to keep Jon at bay, so she spent the long nights planning her next business. While Lucy-Ann was in school, Gina took a job at Pizza Express to keep them afloat and her ex-husband secured her a flat beneath him in Tooting.

After a quick divorce, Gina learned that Jon had stolen everything(Picture: Emma Freeman Portraits 2016)

Once settled, Gina worked ‘night and day’ to set up her new business and build herself back up. Because of the violence, she was granted a quick divorce, but she soon learned Jon had stolen everything she owned.

‘I went to the lawyer to see what the assets were and that’s when we realised he had put the house in his name,’ she says.

Gina was unable to access any of the £1.6 million home she’d paid into because Jon had forged her signature and taken full ownership.

‘I walked away with nothing. But my sanity and my safety for myself and my daughter was more important than fighting for anything financial. I thought – I can build this again,’ she explains.

Gina did indeed build back and better, setting up a new business shortly after. Then, in 2020, she established MoneyShe, a wealth management company that aims to address the gender investment and pension gap.

‘95% of women or partners who suffer from coercive control or domestic abuse suffer financial abuse as well. It is part of the toolkit of control,’ Gina explains.

Gina advises women to have a nest egg, just in case (Picture: Harry Tarbuck)

The pattern of behavior tends to be isolating you from friends and family, so you don’t have anyone to check in with, and then they destroy your self confidence and self esteem. Once an abuser has done that, that’s when the financial control comes in.Then you suddenly realise you don’t have anything to fall back on, on your own.

‘Economic control is something that’s really difficult to get away from. You completely lose who you are. I look back and I can’t imagine that that was me. It was like drowning; a very lonely experience.

‘When I left, I was just so grateful that I’d escaped with my sanity,’ she adds. ‘Jon tried to break everything but there was just something in me that just would not let him destroy it.’

The first red flag appeared at their wedding (Picture: Owner supplied)

Jon died two years ago and Gina is happily remarried to American Businessman Alan Miller – though it took her years to learn to trust him – and she is now going through gruelling treatment for breast cancer. She spends days at a time in bed recovering from chemotherapy, but also works a lot with domestic violence charities and, concerned about the rise of coercive control in young people, and advises women to have a nest egg, just in case.

‘A third of women say they feel they can’t leave a relationship because of money. That is shocking. And only 17% of couples are having serious conversations about money. My advice is to have your own bank account and have an ISA that you can put money into each month. Think of what you need to keep going for six months, because you never know what’s around the corner.

‘I want young women to recognise the sign; isolation, then criticism. When nothing you can do is good enough. You don’t look good enough. You’re too fat, you’re too thin. What you’re wearing is too tarty. Then comes the financial control.

‘Women need to trust their instincts. Listen to that inner voice at the back of your mind and the pit of your stomach. If you have that feeling that things aren’t right, act on it. Don’t ignore it, don’t put it off. Because the earlier you can get out, the easier it is.’

Gina is author of Rise: Life Lessons in Speaking Out, Standing Tall and Leading the Way