A millionaire property mogul who mentally and physically abused his wife for years and denied her a divorce has been jailed today. Alan Moher, 57, was seen laughing and 'smirking' in the dock before being sentenced to 18 months behind bars at Southwark Crown Court.
His wife, Caroline Moher, brought a private prosecution against her husband, Alan Moher, 57, for a charge of controlling and coercive behaviour between January 2016 and January last year. Mr Moher, had refused to grant his wife a 'Get', a document that formally recognises the end of a marriage in the orthodox Jewish faith.
Mr Moher, from Salford, was due to stand trial at Southwark Crown Court last February but changed his plea to guilty. Under Jewish Law, only husbands can agree to a 'Get', reports MyLondon.
Failure to issue a ‘Get’ means Mrs Moher is unable to remarry, have more children or enter into a relationship with another man. While the couple were divorced in a civil court in 2019, they are not considered divorced under Jewish law.
The court heard that Mr Moher used his power to prevent the dissolution of the couple’s religious marriage which caused her emotional and psychological distress, effectively making her “chained” to her husband. On January 23, 2016, shortly after he had received notification from her solicitor that Mrs Moher would be seeking a divorce, Mr Moher threatened her, saying: “You are not f**king getting a Get, you will be one of those chained women.”
On May 9, 2019, when both Mr and Mrs Moher were attending proceedings at the Court of Appeal, Mr Moher again approached Mrs Moher during a break in the proceedings and said: “You may get all of the money, but I swear on [their daughter's] life, you will never ever get the Get from me.”
The court also heard about the extensive physical, emotional and financial abuse Mrs Moher experienced at the hands of her husband during their two decades of marriage which led Mrs Moher to attempt to take her own life. After the attempt, Mr Moher texted his wife saying: “What colour do you want on your gravestone?”
In another instance, Mr Moher deliberately drove his car on the wrong side of the road towards Mrs Moher while she was driving along Singleton Road, before swerving out of the way while laughing at her. When Mr Moher was informed that Mrs Moher had started divorce proceedings, Mr Moher told his wife to “piss off and curl up and die”, the next day Mr Moher put his hands around her throat, spat and screamed in her face and made a threat to her life.
In his statements, Judge Hiddleston said he was satisfied with reports that concluded Mr Moher ‘tormented’ his wife. He said: “Your wife sought to walk away from you to start a new life and as a result you have sought to make it as difficult and painful as you could.”
Jeffery Israel, defending, said: “My client is a 57-year-old man and aside from a single public order incident I would ask the court to treat him as a man of previous good character.” He argued that Mr Moher's autism prevented him from showing emotion. " The general score for being autistic is 65, he scored 199. That really does give Your Honour some proper understanding of Mr Moher's personality and the difficulties that he faces. He's pleaded guilty and that should really go to his credit."
Judge Hiddleston acknowledged the guilty plea and said that this had reduced what would have been a 21-month sentence to 18 months. Mr Moher was also required by the court to make a contribution of £11,000 to court fees. Mr Moher showed no emotion when the verdict was read aloud and was quickly taken into custody. Mrs Moher, who was in attendance, broke down in tears.
In a victim statement read by the prosecutor, she said: “I have very little confidence left and I feel totally destroyed as a person, because of the way that Alti [her husband] treats me. Alti controlled me in every aspect of my life together with him. I felt that he always behaved like my headmaster and I was the pupil. He always seemed to put the fear of God in me. He totally manipulated me and moulded me to how he wanted me to be."
“Imagine being put into a straitjacket, gagged, your hands and feet are tied. You are blindfolded. You are in a cold, dark place. Your only weapon is that you are able to hear. You are dependent on your captor to set you free . That's how I feel still being "married" to Alti/Alan.”
“I have lived with so much stress, heartache, responsibility, hurt, upset, fear, panic, depression, loneliness, abandonment, disappointment, despair and suicidal thoughts, that I am not quite sure how I am able to stand up tall, with my head held high. Feelings of living as a recluse and being an introvert set in. I wear a cap and turn my collar up to nip in to the Kosher shops, hoping that no one recognises me, as I am incognito. I then make a dash for my car, jump in and lock the doors straight away for fear that Atli is still lurking somewhere in a dark place, waiting to pounce on me and kill me. And then I am grateful to make it home to my safe place…”
“I am always a positive person, able to find solutions, but the situation that I find myself in is not one that I can find a solution to, because my life is hanging in Atli's hands, my freedom is in his hands, and he knows it, and relishes in that fact that only he can set me free, but will not. He is a sadistic man and has always enjoyed watching me suffer throughout our marriage. He is enjoying this now. He always enjoyed watching me beg him to put some money into my account, in order that I would not be overdrawn in my bank account. I feel like I have a noose around my neck, a ball and chain at my feet, still being halachically married to him. The problem is always there. I can never forget that I am bound to this monster. I do not think that I could ever trust another man, because of the mistrust and abuse that I had from Alti.”
