My ex-lover spent ‘stressful’ trips sunbathing and shopping – tycoon

A WEALTHY tycoon who is being sued for £500,000 by his former partner has denied her claims that she assisted him on business trips abroad, telling a court that she spent her time sunbathing by the pool or visiting the gym.

Inverness businessman Alan Savage, 61, was responding to claims by Julie Zelent that she carried out work for him during trips to foreign countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Dubai.

“I cannot understand how she could say that,” Mr Savage told Inverness Sheriff Court.

“I would go away to meetings and she would lie by the pool all day or go to the gym or shopping.”

Ms Zelent had earlier insisted she travelled abroad with the businessman in order to accompany Mr Savage at business events.

She told the court: “It was stressful and the pressure of dealing with the clients and the directors of the company meant you were constantly moving around, living out of a suitcase.

“It was not ideal. Moving across time zones was very stressful to me.”

Ms Zelent also complained about being sunburned while on a golfing trip to Perth, Australia.

But Mr Savage denied this was the case, claiming she only “made a contribution” at a business event on just one occasion during their trips abroad.

He claims she treated the trips as holidays.

He also denied her claims that he would tell her what to wear, and that she should only wear a dress once.

Asked by his counsel Jonathan Mitchell, QC: “Would you tell her to wear a dress once and not a second occasion?”

Mr Savage replied: “No, it is absolutely ridiculous.

“Who in their right mind would say to someone to wear something just once?”

The businessman, who runs a recruitment firm for the oil and gas industry, told day five of the civil hearing: “I got no financial benefit from the relationship, but she did.”

Ms Zelent is suing Mr Savage because she claims he forced her to give up a £54,000-a-year job with Royal Bank of Scotland in London in order to move to the Highlands to live with him in 2006.

He denied telling her to leave her job, claiming: “That was her decision.”

She claims that she also turned down the offer of another well-paid job when the businessman begged her to return after a brief separation. Mr Savage also denied this, saying that he even gave her a reference.

Ms Zelent is claiming £500,000 for loss of earnings, employment benefits and pension rights as a breach of promise for marriage.

Ms Zelent met Mr Savage while on a business flight from Edinburgh to London in August 2006, just six months after his wife Linda died of cancer.

The pair, she said, had even talked of marriage in 2008 but Mr Savage suddenly asked her to leave after a golfing weekend with his son, Paul, who, the court heard, had resented the relationship.

Mr Savage set up Orion, which supplies workers worldwide to the oil and gas industry, with wife Linda in 1987.

By 2008, it had a turnover of £287 million.

Linda, 53, died in January 2006, from cancer.

Mr Savage and children Fiona and Paul have since raised thousands of pounds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Last year, he married Lynne Cordiner, an ex-corporate fundraiser for Highland Hospice.

The civil hearing, before Sheriff Margaret Neilson, continues.