Botham’s son bankrupt over £50,000 bill for pheasants
England cricketing legend Sir Ian Botham’s son liam showed that he was a chip off the old block by playing rugby for England Under-21, as well as cricket for Hampshire.
But Botham junior, 41, who these days runs two shooting estates, is now on a stickier wicket than anything Sir Ian ever encountered: he has, I can disclose, been declared bankrupt owing nearly £50,000.
The sorry development stems from an unpaid bill for seven-week-old pheasants supplied last June to liam’s acclaimed shoots — dunskey, in Wigtownshire, and Wisperdale in north lincolnshire.
‘We supplied the birds to him,’ a spokesman for Welham lane game Farm, in leicestershire, tells me.
‘We got a deposit. Then we got another lump sum.’
But payment for the balance remained outstanding. after receiving assurances that the money would soon be forthcoming, the farm owners went on holiday last September. ‘We came back, expecting to see the remainder of the money in the bank: there was nothing.
‘So we sent him a formal letter, saying: “We’re going to take you to court if you don’t pay up within ten days”.’
liam Botham sent three successive cheques. ‘They bounced,’ claims the Welham lane game Farm spokesman, adding that Botham
made four separate assurances that the debt would be paid. But it wasn’t, so a county court judgment was secured against him, leading to his bankruptcy.
Botham, who married his second wife, former beauty queen lisa Harrison, in Mustique in 2013, admits to feeling hit for six. ‘I am devastated about this,’ he tells me.
He insists he stopped two of the cheques and ascribes his financial difficulties to the loss of ‘a huge amount of money in two business deals’.
‘I did try to pay the debt, did not want to be made bankrupt and have instructed an insolvency specialist to help me to pay everyone in full.’
It’s been a bad year for liam, who received a six-month driving ban in February after being caught speeding in his £100,000 Range Rover.