Bob Jane's Ex-wife 'ran Up $1.5m Debt'

The Age

Thursday May 22, 2008

By Mex Cooper

TYRE tycoon Bob Jane admits the signature looks like his, but he has denied signing a mortgage to pay off $1.5 million of his former wife's credit card debts.

The Supreme Court yesterday heard Laree Jane was an "extravagant spender" who had owned 41 credit cards and could not live within an $800,000 yearly allowance during her marriage.

David Collins, SC, for Mr Jane, said Ms Jane had once spent $1.5 million on credit cards in three years.

He said the debt was cleared with a mortgage taken out on Mr Jane's family home, which he had no memory of signing. By April last year, Ms Jane, 40, had amassed another $650,000 in debt with her taste for pearls and "an unwillingness to try and exercise any control over her spending", Mr Collins said.

Mr Jane, 78, and his former wife are in a legal battle over two Bob Jane T-Mart franchises that have been operated by Ms Jane, her sister Natarsha Ryan and brother-in-law Glenn Ryan.

The court heard the Bob Jane Corporation tried to terminate the franchise agreements of the Essendon and Taylors Lakes outlets because of hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid franchise debts.

Mr Collins said the businesses' bank accounts were being drained by Ms Jane and the Ryans for personal expenses and property investments.

Kate McMillan, SC, for Ms Jane, has said Mr Jane was reclaiming the businesses to punish his former wife after their relationship turned sour.

Mr Collins said that after the Janes' bitter break-up, Ms Jane was initially paid $30,000 a month for personal expenses.

But when the payments stopped, she resorted to raiding the franchises' bank accounts to pay credit card bills, he said.

The case before Justice Peter Vickery continues.

© 2008 The Age

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