Millionaire showjumper Phillip Tucker has lost his lengthy and acrimonious court battle with his ex-wife, former Miss World Anneline Kriel Bacon, to have sole custody of their two daughters Tayla, 10, and Whitney, eight.
The High Court awarded custody to Bacon and stipulated that Tucker may visit the children twice a month for a weekend.
In a battle that lasted more than a year, with hundreds of documents that formed part of a hefty court file, Judge Willie van der Merwe ordered that Tucker would pay R2 750 a month maintenance per child. It was agreed that he would also pay for the girls' Jewish private school education as well as their future education.
This was subject to the condition that the children studied at a South African institution and providing that Tucker would be in a financial situation to do this.
The order further stipulated that the children had to be brought up in the Jewish faith and that they would spend some of the Jewish holidays, and every second Yom Kippur, with their father.
Although Tucker may visit his daughters every second weekend in Cape Town where they now live, he may only remove them from the Mother City for one weekend a month.
In January last year Tucker approached the court for sole custody of the children after Bacon indicated she and her husband Peter, Sun International's managing director, wanted to move to a multimillion-rand mansion in Bakoven in Cape Town.
This, Tucker claimed, was whimsical and done with malicious intent by his former wife. He said in the light of their moving from Johannesburg, he wanted sole custody of their children. The couple were granted joint custody when they divorced in 1994.
The court last year granted Bacon permission to move with the children, pending the recommendations of a family advocate over who should be awarded custody.
Bacon was married to casino magnate Sol Kerzner before she married Tucker. The Tuckers' marriage ended in an acrimonious divorce. Bacon told the family advocate her marriage to Bacon was very happy and described him as a wonderful father.