Lady Isabella Hervey's estranged husband launches legal battle to evict her from their marital home after she called him a 'wife beater' who subjected her to years of physical and mental abuse

The husband of Lady Isabella Hervey is launching a legal battle to evict her from their former marital home after she accused him of being a 'wife beater' who allegedly subjected her to years of physical and emotional abuse, MailOnline can reveal.

Christophe De Pauw is instructing lawyers to go to court next week and get her thrown out of the luxury £2.4million villa which they once shared on the Algarve in Portugal. 

The Belgian businessman moved out of the house - named Casa Isabella after his aristocratic former It girl wife - during the summer after she found out he was having an affair with a property consultant who was supposed to be helping to sell the property.

MailOnline can now reveal that he is living with the consultant called Florence Collignon and her two children in a rental villa just two miles from his former six bedroom family home where Isabella, 41 still lives with their three children.

Mr De Pauw is said to have been enraged after Isabella's sister Lady Victoria Hervey last week posted horrific pictures on her Instagram account, showing injuries he allegedly inflicted on his wife in a series of assaults during their marriage.

Superfit cyclist Isabella who won Channel 4 reality sports show The Games in 2004 has told friends that he is now trying to get her thrown out of the house which has eight bathrooms and a swimming pool.

The 16-year-old property, described as a ‘palatial style villa’ by estate agents, overlooks the first and second holes of an exclusive Dom Pedro golf course where Mr De Pauw still plays in the upmarket resort town of Vilamoura.

MailOnline pictured Mr De Pauw on Wednesday as he nonchalantly played on the course which is one of three operated by Dom Pedro with membership fees of 3,630 euros a year.

He was spotted playing with three other men, driving himself in a buggy and showing no signs of the stresses in his personal life after apparently passing within a few feet of his marital home.

Wearing an Under Armour branded blue baseball cap with blue trousers he was seen in three different tops during his round in the winter sunshine, and appeared to remain calm and focused as he played balls out of a bunker and the rough.

Casa Isabella went up for sale earlier this year with local estate agent Silver Holidays for 2,785,000 euros, although its listing on the firm’s website currently says that the ‘golf front villa’ is off the market.

The company’s describes the detached house as having a ‘beautiful high ceilinged entrance hall’, a living room with a log fireplace and a dining room leading to a covered terrace with outdoor cooking facilities.

It adds: ‘This sophisticated three storey property showcases a modern and colourful ambiance throughout, fulfilling all necessary requirements for a remarkable home.

‘The villa which is exquisitely designed has luxury and elegance throughout and was built with special attention to the finest selected materials.

‘This front line 6 bedroom golf property with direct access to the golf course offers sweeping views of the Laguna Golf Course.

‘Due to its south-west facing orientation the house enjoys sun all day long where you can relax in your own private heated pool or watch the sunset in your private jacuzzi located on the first level balcony with direct views over the golf course.’

The website says that the property which has multiple terraces and a ‘beautiful garden with many mature fruit trees’ is at the end of a cul-de-sac and was renovated just three-years-ago.

Mr De Pauw’s new lover Ms Collignon who is also Belgian does not work for Silver Holidays and is instead thought to have been hired by him as a consultant to help sell his property. The house is also currently listed for sale by real estate firm Waratah Properties.

Isabella, who appeared on ITV’s Celebrity Love Island in 2005 and was named as the ‘face of Playboy UK’ in the same year, and her husband moved to Portugal with their children in 2020 after previously living in Belgium.

Victoria, 47, accused Mr De Pauw of being a wife beater last week by posting pictures of Isabella’s cuts and bruises on the Stories section of Her Instagram account which has 550,000 followers.

She accompanied the pictures with messages detailing how the injuries had been had inflicted by Mr De Pauw, including one saying: ‘This story is to give other women the courage to speak out as it took my sister a long time.’

Another message said: ‘Christophe De Pauw should be put away. He is a serial abuser. He would cheat on my sister and then punish her for it. It has got to a point that we can no longer stay silent.’ A third added: ‘This wife beater should be arrested now’.

Victoria, the socialite eldest child of the 6th Marquess of Bristol and his third wife Yvonne, told MailOnline exclusively this week that she had decided to expose Mr De Pauw because she was fed up with him being a ‘bully’.

She said she feared that Isabella was being ‘broken’ by her husband’s repeated abuse which even left her with a fractured skull while she was in hospital after giving birth to their daughter.

Victoria revealed that her sister found the strength to end her marriage to Mr De Pauw after discovering his affair with ‘the woman who was selling their house’.

She said that her brother-in-law who comes from a wealthy Belgian family was now continuing his ‘brutal’ behaviour towards her sister by failing to give her enough money for her and their children to live on.

Victoria added: ‘I have been really fearing for her safety and mental wellbeing. She was feeling that nothing was ever going to improve, and nobody was going to find out what he was really like.

‘When I spoke to one of her lawyer friends, he said, “Look Victoria, you have the power to put this out there. I am giving you the go ahead, let’s do this.”

‘She was just so broken, and so depressed about the whole thing. A lot of it has been mental abuse, making her feel s**t all of the time, as well as physical abuse.’

Victoria continued: ‘My sister also found out there had been an affair before that. He basically thought he could have an affair and go back to my sister, but this time she said she wanted a divorce.’

She also revealed that Isabella had returned from a competitive cycling event to find that her house had been stripped of furniture, with a picture left in the property showing a contented rabbit with a sarcastic message, saying: ‘Enjoying the good life…. One day at a time!’

Victoria said: ‘Cycling competitively is the one thing that has given her something to really feel good about.

‘She was away on a trip, and when she came back, he had emptied half the house. He had just taken a ton of furniture and stuff, and literally just left her with beds and little else.

‘He is just very jealous of her. He kept her so dependent on him in every way, including financially.

‘It’s just brutal what he is doing to her. He is just a horrible human being.

‘When he had this affair in the summer, that was it. He moved in with this new girl and her three kids within a month They all live in Portugal, not far from each other.’

Victoria who appeared in Channel 4 ski show The Jump in 2015, said the abuse by Isabella’s husband ‘escalated really badly’ in March 2019 after their third child India was born, and he punched her in hospital following the birth.

Isabella reported the assault to police, and he was given an official caution, she added.

She said: ‘He kept her very isolated from us. We didn’t know what was going on so we couldn’t help her. She has three small children and he threatened her, saying she would never see the kids again.

‘She had her own issues years ago and was struggling with being bulimic. She has been over that for a long time. But he would try and trigger it because he wanted to make out that she was an unfit mother. He would play these horrible mind games on her.

‘That is why her cycling has really saved her. I don’t think she would even be alive without that.

‘He is a bully and he just made her feel like nobody would ever listen to her, and she was the bad one and everything was her fault.

‘People in these situations don’t call for help for a long time. He would take her phone from her, and I wouldn’t be able to reach her for week. He totally controlled her and took her passport.

‘In her words, she said she was basically held hostage. She couldn’t cry for help. It’s been on and off through the marriage. He went berserk when she filed that police report on him.

‘There was a terrible incident that happened this year when she was concussed and had to go in an ambulance. The housekeeper witnessed it, but didn’t stand up for her as she works for him.

‘The kids are messed up and her two boys think it’s normal to hit as daddy does.’

Victoria said her sister finally opened up to her family about the abuse after filing her police report while living in Brussels in 2019.

Talking of her decision to go public, she added: ‘His family is terrified of the press, and I warned him a while ago, that if he did this anymore, I would go to the press, and he blocked me on WhatsApp

‘My sister was so stressed when I was putting those pictures on social media. She was saying, “I don’t want to see it. Just do it”.

‘I have had hundreds of really nice messages, including quite a lot from people who have been in the same situation as her. I have sent her screenshots.

‘She sounds better. She sees light at the end of the tunnel now. She just wants a fair settlement with him, but he is trying to give her nothing.’

Victoria and Isabella's family lost their ancestral seat, Ickworth in Suffolk, due to the self-destructive behaviour of their elder half-brother, John, the 7th marquess, who died aged 44, effectively penniless after he squandered £35million on helicopters, classic cars, drugs and high living.

The 8th Marquess of Bristol is the sisters’ 44-year-old brother Frederick.

Mr De Pauw has been approached for comment.