Love and the lottery winners: part 2
Tuesday 25 February, 2014
Last November the Sun splashed on the lottery winners Adrian and Gillian Bayford separating. The next day the Mail pitched in with its version of the story: a front-page photograph of Mrs Bayford with her winners' day glass of fizz and a headline that read "Love-split £148m lotto wife and rumours of affair with gardener" She wasn't even a person in her own right - just the 'lotto wife'. The story inside delivered exactly what was promised on the front: a catalogue of rumour and sneers about a woman who had dared to indulge herself with clothes and cars and a grand house - as most would in the event of such a windfall landing in their laps. Her husband, portrayed as more grounded, was said to be less at ease with the new wealth and he had moved out of the very, very big house to one that was just very big. It was a cruel piece of 'journalism' and SubScribe said so at the time. The Mail returned to the couple yesterday, this time with the focus on Mr Bayford. It leads page 7, with the photograph and headline reproduced at the top and this intro: 
Laughing as they stroll together, this is £148m lottery winner Adrian Bayford with the new woman in his life - a Polish-born former sausage factory worker. Marta Jerosz is said to be working as the newly-single 43-year-old's bodyguard and driver...
And it seems the pair have hit it off - so much so that rumours of a romance between them have reached a newspaper in her native Poland. Ah, we're back on the rumour mill again. And just in case we didn't catch it first time, she's Polish from Poland.
Mr Bayford says there's no romance, that Ms Jerosz 'works for him and that's it'. But the Mail knows how to detect the tell-tale signs: 
The pair looked at ease in each other's company as they arrived at Stansted Airport on Friday. Joking in the sunshine, with one small suitcase between them, they could have been mistaken for a couple embarking on a weekend away. Or maybe the single suitcase might mean that only one of them was catching a flight?
Miss Jarosz did not seem to be performing any sort of security role, carrying a £200 Fossil designer handbag on her arm and wearing knee-high heeled boots. Well that seals it then. Where were the helmet and flak jacket?
Mr Bayford, who had no need to explain himself, said that he had been going to see his children "who are thought to have moved to Dundee with their mother after she found love with car dealer Alan Warnock."
What about the gardener? Was that just a rumour after all? Since the Bayfords split, Miss Jarosz has apparently been "a regular visitor to his new house and has been seen driving a £34,000 Volvo, thought to be a gift from the father-of-two, who cannot drive". Well naturally the only explanation is that it's a devoted lover's generous present. It couldn't be an employer supplying his driver with the tools required to do her job. And if she works for him as a bodyguard and driver, it's fair to assume that she would need to be where he was a good deal of the time.
Mr Bayford, Ms Jarosz and her mother all say there is no romance. And what if there were? What business is it of the Mail or of any of us? Who can justify this invasive 'journalism', speculating on the relationships of people who play no part in public life? Especially when it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Five days later - five days - the Mail was reporting "Lottery winner who split with wife year after £149m win finds love with a stable girl 16 years younger" This story came courtesy of the Sun on Sunday. Samantha Burbidge had apparently given up her job and moved in with Mr Bayford after a three-week romance (when Mr B was supposed to be getting friendly with Ms Jarosz) and the couple were apparently now on holiday in the Maldives. Two weeks on, again courtesy of the Sun, the Mail is reporting that Mr Bayford and Ms Burbidge have become engaged and plan a James Bond themed wedding. We await the next episode with trepidation. |
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Two ordinary people win an awful lot of money and find the stress drives them apart. The Mail could leave them in peace - or crank up the rumour mill
This isn't Lady Chatterley, it's real life 
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