Lauryn Goodman accused of ‘insatiable greed’ after Kyle Walker court battle

Lauryn Goodman has been accused of “insatiable greed” after a family court battle with England footballer Kyle Walker over child maintenance payments.

Mr Walker, 34, appeared at the Central Family Court in London earlier this month in a dispute with Ms Goodman over the amount of money he should pay to support their one-year-old daughter, Kinara.

Ms Goodman, 33, asked the court to order that Mr Walker pay £14,750 a month in “global” child maintenance for the pair’s two children, as well as tens of thousands for cars, furnishing and property maintenance and other costs such as nursery fees.

Judge Edward Hess dismissed many of her demands, claiming that Ms Goodman was “not reliable” and “often exaggerated her need to spend money”.

Following the ruling, a spokesperson for the Manchester City defender said that proceedings “were never necessary”.

They said: “This judgment speaks for itself in laying bare Lauryn Goodman’s insatiable greed and relentless pursuit of money.

“The judge made it clear: she used Kyle as an open-ended chequebook and repeatedly threatened him in order to get what she wanted.

“She then orchestrated a media campaign to feed intolerable and wrongful intrusion into the private lives of Kyle, Annie and their young family.

“Throughout each court proceeding the judge stated that Kyle adopted a fair and generous stance. These proceedings were never necessary.

“Kyle’s offer should have been accepted months ago and would therefore have eliminated the need for added stress to all involved.

“In light of this judgment and the truths it makes public, my client and his family now ask that the media fully respects their rights to a private life as they navigate their next steps.”

In a statement, Ms Goodman said: “I’d like to thank the judge for his careful consideration, with my children’s needs at the heart of his decision.

“These have been difficult and stressful proceedings, which I had hoped would not be necessary. This has only ever been about the children and providing for their futures.

“I am a dedicated single mother and whilst my children will never have what their half-siblings have, I have tried my best for my children and always will, no matter what.

“Thanks to my legal team and the judge’s decision, my children’s childhood is secure and I will now focus on building a solid future for them so as to provide for the time when the children’s home reverts back to their father.

“More than anything, I look forward to enjoying every moment with my children and the three of us being able to get on with our lives.”

The two-day hearing began on July 16, a day after Mr Walker returned from Germany after England’s European Championship final defeat to Spain.

The press was restricted from reporting on the case during the hearing, but Judge Hess ruled that the restrictions should be lifted on Tuesday.

The court heard that Ms Goodman began her legal claim two days after Kinara’s birth, with her demands including that Mr Walker paid for the upkeep of a hydro-pool, a £28-per-hour gardener, a car worth up to £70,000 every three years and air conditioning costing around £33,000.

Giving evidence, she said that the money was needed to “secure my children’s future” and that she did not want Kinara, as well as the pair’s older son Kairo, to be “different” from Mr Walker’s other children.

She also justified the need for a £31,200 artificial turf pitch by stating that Kinara kicked a ball from a crawling position, which could make her a future England footballer, adding: “The Lionesses are better than the Lions.”

But the judge dismissed the pitch demand, describing her reasoning as an “unjustified evidential leap”, and also rejected the air conditioning claim, adding she could mitigate high temperatures in her home by “deploying a modestly-priced electric fan”.

Mr Walker, who also has four sons with his wife Annie Kilner Walker, opposed some of Ms Goodman’s claims or argued they should be decreased, telling the court that he was not an “open chequebook” despite earning between £3 million and £5 million per year.

While he accepted some of the demands, Mr Walker’s lawyers claimed that Ms Goodman was making a “blatant attempt to leverage” money for “personal benefit”.

In his ruling, Judge Hess claimed Mr Walker “acted with dignity and generosity”, adding he was “not persuaded” by many of Ms Goodman’s claims.

He said: “Plainly, he (Mr Walker) was embarrassed and remorseful as to the difficult situation in which he has placed a number of people, including all of his children, and regretted his decision-making in trying to keep his paternity of Kinara a secret.

“But he has in my view acted with dignity and generosity, and, once the secret was out, honesty, in facing up to the financial and personal consequences of what happened.

“In contrast, my assessment of the mother is that she was not reliable, often said what she thought would help her case rather than what was true, failed to make a calm and measured assessment of what she needed and often exaggerated her need to spend money.”

The judge said that Walker had already paid more than £430,000, plus thousands more per month, to Ms Goodman for Kinara and changes to her £2.4 million Sussex property, which he also purchased.

The footballer also agreed to pay “all but a very small portion” of Ms Goodman’s £259,298 of legal costs related to the dispute, on top of his own fees of £171,440.

Mr Walker was ordered to pay £12,500 per month in child maintenance – a figure he offered before the hearing began – and a sum of £5,000 for furniture compared with Ms Goodman’s initial demand of £20,000.

Mr Walker was also ordered to pay £30,000 for a car to be used by a nanny and other fees.

Ms Goodman has previously publicly confirmed that Mr Walker was the father of her second child, and sent a text to Mrs Walker last December stating: “Hey it’s Lauryn I just wanted to quickly tell you that Kyle is the father of our daughter.”

In his ruling, the judge said that Mr Walker had made payments to Ms Goodman to “keep the lid” on the news of her second pregnancy, adding “honesty might have been a better policy”.

The judge also added that it was not the court’s role to “make moral judgments” or “punish or condemn any perceived human frailties or lack of wisdom”.

But he ruled that the text sent by Ms Goodman to Mrs Walker “intended to, and did, cause distress”.

He said he did not accept Ms Goodman’s explanation that the text was sent “in an attempt to create a good working relationship” between the pair, and later said that Ms Goodman “had in mind causing irreparable damage to the father’s marriage”.