(Daily Mail.co.uk) - The 'mistress' of a super-rich Russian oligarch locked in a legal battle with his ex-wife and children over his 'missing' £100 million today told the High Court he was the 'love of my life'.
Brigita Morina, 42, insisted businessman Vladimir Alekseyevich Scherbakov wanted her to inherit most of his fortune with the couple sharing an 'unbreakable connection and loved each other deeply'.
- Brigita Morina, 42, shared 'unbreakable connection' with Vladimir Scherbakov
- Businessman was found dead, aged 56, in Belgium while in hiding from Kremlin
The 56-year-old died in June 2017 while being investigated by the Kremlin on charges of fraud, leaving behind a huge fortune sunk in assets across the globe, including the rights to a £12million mansion in Surrey where he had lived with Ms Morina and their children.
The final will he made in England in 2015 left the vast majority of his assets outside Russia to Ms Morina and her family.
But she is now locked in a court fight over that fortune with his adult children from a previous relationship - Olga Scherbakova, 34, and Alexander Scherbakov, 25 - along with their mother Elena Scherbakova.
They argue their father 'must have torn up' the will - which has disappeared - because he wanted them to share in the fortune.
But giving evidence at the High Court in London today, Ms Morina insisted that Mr Scherbakov wanted her to benefit and that they planned to marry.
Describing him as the 'love of my life,' she said that, despite being forced apart by his fleeing the UK to avoid extradition to Russia in his final months, their 'love and commitment' to each other continued and he wanted to provide for her and their family.
However, outlining her own case, Olga claimed Ms Morina - who she called her father's 'mistress' in court - has an 'unhealthy obsession' with the Scherbakov family and 'can't get over' the fact that he chose not to marry her.
'We think Vladimir probably destroyed the English will - we have irrefutable evidence to prove this,' she told the judge, Mrs Justice Bacon, during the ongoing trial.
Court documents detail that Scherbakov had Olga and Alexander with Elena, but the pair split and he went on to form a relationship with Ms Morina - the former creative director of luxury Swiss watchmaker DeLaneau - in 2010.
He spent his time with her in England, where he owned £12million Granville House, his mansion in Weybridge, Surrey, as well as a multi-million-pound townhouse in Belgravia, central London, and a £400,000 wine collection.
He was a member of prestigious London clubs, including the Arts Club, in Dover Street, and Mayfair's 5 Hertford Street club, proposing to Ms Morina at a Knightsbridge restaurant in 2015.
Hodge Malek KC, for Ms Morina, said Scherbakov fled to Belgium in 2016 to avoid extradition after a criminal complaint was filed against him by Andrey Lugovoy, a former Russian Security Services agent and deputy in the Russian Duma, who was found by the European Court of Human Rights to have murdered Alexander Litvinenko.
He said that, once in Belgium, Scherbakov lived in fear, refusing 'to eat fruit given by others out of fear that it may have been poisoned' and terrified that his conversations were being bugged, leading to him only using encrypted forms of communication.
The criminal investigation was eventually dropped, but by that time Scherbakov had died, having been found hanged in Belgium in 2017, aged 56.
Following his death, his two families fought against each other in courts in various parts of the world, including a fight which resulted in a Belgian judge handing the right to dispose of their father's body to his adult children.
In another struggle involving his offshore business interests in the British Virgin Isles, his companies were said by a judge to have 'at least a nine-figure dollar value'.
Ms Morina and the adult children are now fighting over his final will, which left her and her family almost all his non-Russian assets, said to be worth 'in excess of £100 million'.
With the original will unaccounted for, the siblings insist that their father must have destroyed it, because he no longer wanted Ms Morina to get 'almost everything' he had.
But Mr Malek said the will could not have been destroyed, because it was examined by an expert in the course of an alleged 'extortion' attempt against Ms Morina.
He said an offer had been made to hand over the document in exchange for €35m and the document forensically analysed during a meeting in Paris.
'[Ms Morina's] case is that the original English will existed after Vladimir's death,' he told the court.
'It was inspected...for the purposes of verifying that it is the original. As such, as a matter of English law, Vladimir did not revoke the English will.
'The original English will was - at an unknown point in time - misappropriated and has since been suppressed by certain persons who have refused to deliver it up unless Ms Morina pays a substantial ransom sum.'
Although they firmly deny involvement and say the extortion claim was a 'set up', Mr Malek says the 'irresistible inference' from the evidence is that the siblings were involved in the 'suppression' of the will.
He said they and their mother - who has stopped actively participating in the case and is now serving a jail sentence in Russia - had 'attacked [Ms Morina] on multiple fronts, at great human and emotional cost'.
It included denigrating the quality of her relationship with Scherbakov, which they characterised as an 'affair' or 'romantic relationship', when in fact it was a 'lasting and deep-rooted relationship'.
'[Ms Morina's] case is that Vladimir consistently intended to provide for her and their children upon his death, pursuant to the provisions of the English will,' he said.
Giving evidence, Ms Morina said: 'Vladimir and I formed a loving union and became a strong team.
'From our working relationship in 2009, to a romantic relationship that started in 2010 which blossomed over seven loving years, through various holidays and travels, social gatherings, building homes together, raising our children, and the challenges Vladimir was facing, we remained a team.
'We had an unbreakable connection and loved each other deeply. Even though we were faced with Vladimir's forced relocation, severe stress, depression, anxiety, and addiction, our love and commitment to each other and protecting our family remained solid.
'Still today, I am unable to rationalise the existence of all the proceedings, when Vladimir clearly and consistently expressed his wishes and intentions. He wanted to provide financially for both sets of families and had allocated specific assets to each family.
'The final three months of Vladimir's life were tumultuous, but Vladimir and I remained committed to each other and optimistic for our future together.'
Cross-examining her, Olga questioned their commitment to each other, pointing out that Ms Morina and her father were living in different countries.
She drew attention to Ms Morina's witness statement, in which she set out how in a text while they were apart Scherbakov had said to her: 'I am proud and I loved you and still but unfortunately we cannot marry.'
He had also texted to her 'from love to hate in one step' after they argued about their living arrangements.
Explaining those messages, Ms Morina said: 'When he says "not married" he was referring to the fact that we cannot get married yet. He is expressing his love and that he was sorry given the circumstances.
'He is apologising for the fact that we cannot get married yet and seeking my confirmation that I was still there for him.'
She added: 'Throughout Vladimir's stay in Belgium, we both still wished for our wedding plans to go ahead.'
She also spoke of her pain when, after Scherbakov's death, the adult children and his ex-wife 'started pursuing what I can only describe as a personal vendetta' against her, including being excluded from his funeral.
'I remember that time as one of the most difficult of my entire life,' she said.
'I was completely cast away. I was not able to carry out his last wish.
'I was excluded from any remembrance of him which is not an easy memory to grapple with or live with.'
Outlining the siblings' case before the judge today, Olga denied any suggestion that she has been involved in the 'suppression' of her father's English will or any alleged extortion attempt.
She said she did not believe her father would leave a will which benefited his 'mistress' at the home of her mother.
And she denied the suggestion that her father's place of permanent residence when he died was England - as Ms Morina's lawyers claim - and so his estate is not governed by English law.
'We have compelling evidence that Vladimir didn't want to establish himself permanently in England,' she told the judge.
'His sole motivation for jumping between countries was based on a tax avoidance scheme.
'This whole case has become so out of proportion. Nothing makes sense.
'We have lost our father in tragic and morbid circumstances. Our mother is helpless, serving an unlawful jail sentence.
'Vladimir didn't want to go to jail in Russia, because he said it is a horrible place.'
She added: 'My children will never get to meet their grandfather. We lost our parents and now we are losing ourselves.
'That's why we are standing and fighting for the only rights we have left.
'We are tired of the whole matter. This is a legal nightmare.'
The siblings are fighting Ms Morina's application for a grant of probate of the 2015 will and want a declaration that their father was domiciled in Belgium at death and died intestate.
The two-week trial continues.
