Husband who sacked wife 'tried to overlook affair'

A MILLIONAIRE wine merchant spoke yesterday of the moment his wife admitted an affair with her daughter's school bus driver, telling him: 'He makes me feel like a whole woman.'

John Milroy, 58, told a west London industrial tribunal he offered to 'forgive and forget' for their daughter's sake.

But Velma Milroy, 44, a director and shareholder in the fine wines and spirits business in Soho, central London, refused to ditch her lover, Bob McMasters, and eventually set up home with him.

Mr Milroy, who denies unfairly dismissing his wife shortly after learning of her affair, said four days of 'high drama' began with his wife going missing one day in July last year.

Fearing she might have been mugged, he searched supermarket car parks and lay-bys. He phoned numerous friends and eventually contacted police.

Unknown to him, Mrs Milroy was with her 50-year-old lover.

By the time she returned he had learnt of 'certain goings-on' which she did not deny.

Mr Milroy, of Bolters Lock, Maidenhead, Berkshire, said he awoke the next day to find a note on the pillow saying she had gone for a walk but would be back within an hour.

'But she didn't get back until about 6pm. She told me that she had spent the day in bed with her lover. I was disgusted.'

He said he promised to forgive and forget if she rang her boyfriend and finished the affair.

But the next day he listened in to a 'lovey-dovey' phone conversation the 'cunning, conniving so-and-so' had with her lover.

'I told her 'I have had enough. Just piss off out of my life'.'

Mrs Milroy, now divorced and living with Mr McMasters in Bracknell, claims her former husband spent most of his time in expensive restaurants while she was left to run the business.

The hearing was adjourned until 15 October.