The father of Prince Harry’s latest lady friend Cressida Bonas was branded ‘untrustworthy’ in a court case over the divorce settlements from his first marriage. The prince’s rumoured fling’s father,Jeffrey Bonas, was forced to borrow money to cover the payout to his first wife Elspeth after their divorce in 1986. As he was unable to pay the £1.2m settlement he borrowed £350,000 from NatWest Bank, according to re-surfaced court documents. Despite ‘a number of arrangements’, the Oxford graduate was unable to repay the bank, increasing the debt to £578,000 and risking the flat of a friend who has stepped in as guarantor for the loan. In the High Court judgement from 2003, Mr Bonas, an entrepreneur, businessman and historian according to his website, is branded ‘unreliable’ and is said to have ‘cloaked his affairs’ with offshore Isle of Man trusts and Swiss bank accounts. Although Mr Bonas reached a settlement with NatWest, the judge said that someone who is known to deposit money in offshore accounts should not be complaining if people around him believe him to be richer than he claims to be. In his judgement Mr Justice Lindsay said:’ I have preferred the evidence of persons other than Mr Bonas.’ ‘He was, for a short span, a man of exceptional wealth and, perhaps to protect that position, cloaked his affairs with offshore Isle of Man trusts and Isle of Man and Swiss bank accounts. ‘Anyone who goes to such lengths to achieve opacity but then later finds himself in debt can hardly complain when others conclude that it might be that he has more resources than he is claiming to have. He added: ‘I cannot regard Mr Bonas as a reliable or candid witness.’ His daughter Cressida, rumoured new squeeze of the third in line to the throne, is Mr Bonas’s daughter form his second marriage to Sixties cover girl Lady Mary-Gaye Georgiana Lorna Curzon. The leggy 23-year-old is a model for luxury brand Burberry and an aspiring actress, she is said to be a ‘sweet, bubbly’ character and was introduced to the prince by her close friend, Princess Eugenie. On Wednesday she joined Harry and his cousin for a party following the London premiere of Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, at the Freemasons’ Hall in Covent Garden – where they were at pains to walk in and out separately.
