Anthony Fry had his living arrangements fixed up very nicely indeed. As a millionaire financier and distinguished man of influence, he lived with his wife Anne in a splendid £13.5 million five-storey property in London’s Notting Hill.
The house was furnished in the minimalist style, with an abundance of cream marble and an uber-modern kitchen overlooking a fashionably landscaped garden.
The area is popular with bankers who have more money than they know what to do with, and Mr Fry fitted in well.
Anthony Fry's affair with Claire Hoey, left, was uncovered after the banker, left, suffered a large stroke
Not only was he one of the biggest names in the business, with a glittering career with Lehmans Brothers and NM Rothschild, he was also a member of the broadcasting regulatory body, the BBC Trust, and chairman of the footballing Premier League.
His personal life was equally exuberant, with not only a wife but also a mistress to his name.
And while you might expect a man in such a position to prefer to keep the two women in his life as far apart as possible, this was not the case with Anthony Fry.
His mistress, Claire Hoey, an investment banker, lived less than a mile away from the Fry family home in a charming mews house in Holland Park — still within the sought-after W11 postcode.
It must have made rather a pleasant walk, strolling through Notting Hill’s leafy streets to visit Claire. And how convenient, too, for a busy man like Mr Fry.
Not only did he have three grown-up children with his wife, he’d recently become a father again with Claire, who delivered twin daughters on March 15, 2012.But, surprise surprise, the set-up wasn’t quite perfect. Mrs Fry knew nothing whatever about Claire’s existence — let alone the twins. And although Mr Fry had nerves of steel to cope with his mistress living so close by, it must have worried him, from time-to-time, that this situation was a ticking timebomb which would surely explode at some point.
But even he could not have imagined that when his web of deceit finally untangled, it would do so in quite such dramatic circumstances.
On March 4 last year, Anthony Fry suffered a severe stroke. It is thought that he collapsed shortly after leaving his office and was rushed to hospital.
It is not known how long Mr Fry spent in hospital but during those critical first few days after the stroke, both women visited him — and the inevitable happened.
One day, Mrs Fry turned up at visiting hours to be told by a perplexed member of staff that his wife was already with him.
The ‘wife’ in question was Claire — who at 34 is 23 years younger than 57-year-old Anne Fry, the real wife.
The millionaire was recovering in hospital when his wife turned up, while his mistress was sitting at his bedside
There was an awful moment of clarity for poor Mrs Fry; a dawning of the truth. Her husband confessed all — but given that he’d been cornered in his hospital bed, what else could he do?
Not surprisingly, after this shattering bedside revelation, Mrs Fry promptly severed all ties with her husband.
Today, Anthony Fry and Claire are now officially together — though the circumstances in which this came about are probably not what Claire would have hoped for.
Last weekend, a Sunday newspaper exposed Mr Fry’s secret — the day after he celebrated his 60th birthday on holiday. Claire is believed to have accompanied him on the trip.
His exposure will be a devastating embarrassment to him, given his high-profile, public role.
Although urbane and cultured, friends say he did not appear to be a ladies’ man — and his straight-talking approach to business gave the impression that he was a straightforward man in his private life also.
Certainly, there are few clues in his upbringing. The son of a company secretary, Anthony Fry was born in Worthing, West Sussex. He was a bright child and went on to study History at Oxford.
At Oxford in the 1970s, he was a contemporary of Benazir Bhutto, the future Prime Minister of Pakistan, who was assassinated in 2007, and they were often to be seen out together in her yellow sports car. In later years, he was to advise her on privatisation in Pakistan.
Mr Fry is believed to have married Anne Birrell, who is originally from Scotland, in the late Eighties and they went on to have three children — Sophie, who is now 24, Edward, 22, and Hugo, 18.
Until Anthony Fry, right, suffered his stroke on March 4, 2014, his wife was oblivious to his secret family
He joined Rothschild in the early Eighties, where he was regarded as one of the bank’s biggest star players. From 2004 to 2007, he worked for Lehman Brothers.
‘I am an old-fashioned corporate finance adviser to big companies,’ Mr Fry once said.
Money was no object. As well as the house in Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill, the Frys also had a 17th century farmhouse, also furnished in the minimalist style, in Oxfordshire. The late singer Amy Winehouse once sang at a family birthday party there.
In 2008, Mr Fry became a member of the BBC Trust, the Corporation’s regulatory body, receiving a salary of £35,230 a year for a two-day-a-week commitment.
By this time, he had probably already met his future mistress.
Miss Hoey, an insurance broker’s daughter, was born and brought up in Essex. After graduating from Durham University, she went into investment banking.
She worked at Lehmans between 2003 and 2008, and it is likely that this is where she and Anthony Fry met.
The fact that Mr Fry was married was one complication. But in fact Claire was married, too. In 2007, she wed 39-year-old Trinidadian Ricardo Garcia, with whom she was already living in Twickenham, South-West London. Two years later, Mr Garcia set up a wine shop in Twickenham, close to the rugby stadium.
It isn’t clear precisely when the affair began between Claire and Tony — as his friends know him — but by mid-2011 she was pregnant with the twin girls.
This week, Mr Garcia would say only: ‘I am not in contact with her any more.’
Around this time, Claire moved into the mews house in Holland Park, which was rented.
The twins arrived, a minute apart, on March 15, 2012, at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in West London.
Heaven knows how, but over the next few months Mr Fry managed to juggle life with his two families at the house in Notting Hill and Claire’s mews house in Holland Park.
Around the time that the twins were born, Claire set up her own investment consultancy company, Vita Nel Lusso (Life in Luxury). Her lover, Mr Fry was appointed ‘senior advisor’ — a role he failed to mention on his personal website.
The year the twins were born, there was controversy at the BBC after it was discovered that some of its most highly-paid names — including Jeremy Paxman — had been using a potential ‘tax dodge’ by being employed as freelancers and paid through their own private companies.
Mr Fry said at the time: ‘If someone clearly has the characteristics of being an employee, there will not be exceptions because someone is a big talent.’
He disapproved of the practice, it would seem.
Yet the Mail has discovered that Mr Fry himself is an investor in a company, Invicta Film Partnership, which is under investigation by HM Revenue & Customs — concerning tax avoidance.
After details of the affair emerged, Anne Fry initiated divorce proceedings and the couple sold their Notting Hill home, pictured
In May 2013, when the twins were 14 months old, Mr Fry was appointed Chairman of the Premier League. The news was greeted with widespread surprise. No one knew the opera-loving Mr Fry had a passion for football.
At the time he was described as a Manchester United supporter, so it was embarrassing when it emerged a month later that he had three season tickets at Chelsea FC.
After winning this prestigious post, for which he reportedly received a salary of around £200,000 a year for devoting half his working week to the role, Mr Fry resigned from his position with the BBC Trust.
The Premier League appointment inevitably raised Mr Fry’s profile, and rumours began to circulate that he had an unusual domestic set-up.
That same year, the Frys put their country property in Oxfordshire on the market.
Then, at the end of the year, Claire made a reference in a blog she was sporadically writing of having moved into a new house.
Was the Oxfordshire house put on the market, as was rumoured, to free up money to help Fry with the upkeep of his mistress and twins? Meanwhile, it seems Claire was tiring of being the mistress.
In January 2014, she wrote in her blog about a falling out she’d had with her PA, which had resulted in the woman’s employment being terminated.
Among the many complaints she had against this lady was her lack of attention to detail and the mis-spelling of names in her ‘contacts’ database.
‘I have the Chairman of the Premier League listed as Chairman of the “Primier League” she wrote.’
Was this oblique reference to Fry an unconscious expression of her unhappiness with the secret nature of their relationship?
Ms Hoey gave birth to the couple's twin girls at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on March 15, 2012
The following month, Miss Hoey wrote a piece on her blog about relationships — and how people stay in relationships out of habit when the relationship has long ago died.
‘The dictionary definition of “habit” is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition or an “established disposition of the mind or character”.
‘Many people remain in both jobs and relationships that are well past their sell-by date in terms of what suits them best. Often, in both instances, there are extenuating factors which prevent them from moving on — whether that be financial concerns in relation to a job, or the impact on children or finances where a relationship or marriage is concerned.
‘Beyond these fundamental concerns, many of us spend a significant proportion of our lives trying to pretend that we are happy with our lot or burying our true feelings about our lives beneath the surface, which in themselves become habitual behaviour.’
You don’t need to be a marriage guidance counsellor to get what she’s driving at.
There was another cloud on Mr Fry’s horizon, too. Rumours were circulating in the sporting world that a newspaper had got hold of the story of his double life and was about to run it.
But then there was a further twist to the tale, with Mr Fry’s sudden collapse on March 4 last year.
How soon after he was taken to hospital that the fateful visit of both wife and mistress took place is not clear.
But it is believed Miss Hoey had taken the twins with her to see their father when Mrs Fry also decided to pay a visit.
‘It seems the hospital staff thought Claire was Tony’s wife,’ says a source. ‘And so when another wife turned up, it was all very awkward.
‘Anne later confronted him about it and he admitted that he’d been having an affair with Claire and had fathered twins with her.
‘Anne had no idea.’
Stunned at the deception, Mrs Fry left her husband almost straight away. The Notting Hill house was put up for sale and last September it was sold for £13.5 million.
The Oxfordshire property was sold the same month, for £4.7m.
Not long afterwards, she began divorce proceedings.
Mr Fry, meanwhile, remained very ill. On the advice of his doctors, he resigned as Chairman of the Premier League in June last year, three months after suffering the stroke.
Over the past few months his condition has slowly improved and he is now mobile again, although it is believed he uses a stick to help him get about.
Then, last weekend, his relationship with Claire Hoey was revealed.
Mr Fry remains the chairman of CALA, a Scottish house builder, although he remains ‘off work’. He is also a non-executive director of Control Risks, the global risk assessment company.
Miss Hoey’s company, Vita Nel Lusso, remains in operation.
Mr Fry’s divorce proceedings are thought to be still ongoing.
Once it is settled, and Mrs Fry has received her financial settlement, her former husband and his one-time secret mistress may find that their ‘life in luxury’ isn’t quite so lavish as it once was.
