An attempt by a divorcee to have a “meal ticket for life” backfired after a High Court Judge ruled her maintenance payments should cease after just three years.

Kim Waggott, 49, had been awarded a settlement of £9.76m and £175,000 in annual maintenance payments for the rest of her life when she split from her multimillionaire husband William in 2012, after Mr Waggott twice had affairs.

Unhappy with the deal she went back to court and asked for a £23,000 a year increase in the annual maintenance payments.

But Mr Waggott, 54, has now successfully challenged the original award, leaving his former wife with a fraction of what she wanted.

Lord Justice Moylan, at London's Appeal Court, on Wednesday ordered the £175,000 a year maintenance payments to stop in three years' time rather than continuing till their deaths, granting Mr Waggott a "clean break" from his former wife.

He said that Mrs Waggott, the former finance controller of UCI cinemas, will not suffer "undue hardship" - and can always get a job if she needs more money.

Mr Waggott, the finance director of TUI travel, had protested that the ruling made by a divorce judge in 2014 was wrong and meant his wife had "no financial incentive" to get back to work and stop living off him.