A Baron's son found guilty of assaulting a policeman after rowing with his BBC presenter wife over divorce blamed her job for the breakdown in his marriage.
The Hon Edward Charles d'Olier Gibson has been ordered to wear an electronic tag for the next two months and given a curfew for his "sustained and drunken" attack on Pc Aaron Walker who was called to the family home by Tanya Beckett following a drunken argument with her husband.
BBC World Service presenter Ms Beckett, 47, claimed her husband had pulled her hair and threatened her but he was cleared of the allegation.
The son of Edward Barry Greynville Gibson, the fourth Baron Ashbourne said he had filed for divorce the moment he was allowed out of police custody the morning after his arrest.
He blamed his estranged wife’s career for many of their marital problems.
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31 Oct 2013Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Gibson said: “She was very, very career focused, her career was everything to her.
“The BBC is a strange beast and, like a lot of strange beasts, it is very political, who is in, who is out.
“The BBC does look after those within it well but I think there is a lot of pressure and jostling for position and power.
“When we were first married and first going out it was fairly easy for her to take Bank Holidays and things off, then suddenly she had to do Boxing Day.
“It did make things very difficult.”
The 45-year-old heir, who is now forced to travel into the City for work each day wearing the electronic tag around his ankle, said: “It is like wearing a watch around your ankle. It is horrible, that is all I can say about it.
“Luckily it is not visible to anyone else so it is not like you have been branded.”
Mr Gibson has not spoken to Ms Beckett since their row on June 8.
He said: “Virtually the first thing I did when I got out of the police station was start looking for divorce lawyers.
“All communications since then have gone through my brother.”
The pair first met as students at Pembroke College, Oxford, but did not start going out until bumping into each other at a college reunion in 1998.
Mr Gibson described Ms Becket as “bubbly, fun, vivacious, self-assured” when he first met her.
Within a year they got engaged and were married in September 2000.
He claimed the marriage started to fall apart until shortly after his wife gave birth to their third child and they moved out of London to a farmhouse in Lewknor, Oxfordshire, three years ago.
He said his wife’s strange working hours meant the couple hardly saw each other during the week.
“It coincided with a stressful period at work,” he said. “That didn’t help."
Mr Gibson said he had been forced to make a number of career and lifestyle sacrifices for his wife during their 13 year marriage.
He claimed he was forced to quit his job presenting a show on LBC Radio in London to move to New York for three years when Ms Beckett was offered a BBC role there.
“She was offered a position by the BBC out there and I basically followed,” he said.
“I gave up a good job in the UK to go there.
“I’m a bit bitter about the way we went to America, at the time we were both doing jobs which required us to get up very early.
District Judge Tim Pattinson at Oxford Magistrates Court ordered Mr Gibson to be at his London flat between the hours 9.30pm and 5am, Sunday to Friday leaving Saturday free for him to go and see his children.
The Daily Telegraph contacted Ms Beckett and was told she did not wish to comment.
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