A wealthy family is "tearing itself apart" as they battle over a £50 million fortune, a court has heard.
Divorce proceedings involving Leicestershire millionaire engineering tycoon Richard Shield, 72, and his wife of 43 years, Susan, has split their family and rung up a £700,000 legal bill.
Mrs Shield, 69, launched divorce proceedings against her husband, who still lives in the former marital home in Queniborough.
The High Court, in London, heard the divorce has triggered a bitter row over claims that he had financially favoured their son over her and their three daughters.
Mr Shield, who the court heard was "physically and mentally unwell", has amassed his huge fortune through his engineering business, Shield Group, of Hamilton, and property, with his wife owning 5 per cent, the court heard.
Speaking at a pre-trial hearing, Mr Justice Holman said a big part of the "awful conflict" centred on whether the couple's riches are held in trust for their 35-year-old son, Christopher Shield.
He said: "This family appears to be tearing itself apart and it fills the sympathetic but detached observer such as myself with nothing but despair.
"There appears to be an intense conflict within the family in relation to certain dispositions which were, or may have been, made some years ago by the husband, and which may appear to have favoured the son in preference to the daughters and to the disadvantage of the wife."
A decree absolute to end the couple's marriage of more than four decades has yet to be made.
The judge said Mr Shield, who had previously been "compulsorily detained" due to his psychiatric problems, was now living in the former matrimonial home while his wife was "having to live with one of their daughters".
"It is clearly a fundamental part of the background to recent events that the husband has been both physically and mentally, or psychiatrically unwell. Therein lies a significant element of the tragedy," he said.
The court heard that doubts remain over whether Mr Shield currently has legal "capacity" to make important decisions for himself and the judge directed that his condition be further assessed by a psychiatrist.
Mr Justice Holman said: "I have been faced with a situation that is, frankly, extremely tragic and appears unedifying.
"After a marriage of no less than 43 years, a wife has felt constrained to petition for divorce from her husband.
"There is a decree nisi but not yet a decree absolute."
Issuing a world-weary lament that opportunities for compromise had been missed, he added: "I have to say, as I leave this very long day, that I do so with a feeling of the utmost despair that this family could have spent three-quarters of a million pounds just to get to this stage.
"They are likely to spend some hundreds of thousands of pounds in preparation for, and at the hearing of, the preliminary issue, and even that is only the preliminary issue.
"This family appears to be tearing itself apart, and it fills the sympathetic but detached observer such as myself with nothing but despair."
