A son of motor magnate Arnold Clark who was allegedly “very tight with his money” has ended his marriage with a divorce settlement in excess of £1 million.

John Arnold Clark, 51, was ordered to give his estranged wife Jillann the sum following proceedings at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

The court heard how the couple were married in November 2005 but they had separated in January 2022.

In a written judgement published by the court on Thursday, Lady Carmichael wrote of how Jillann estimated her grocery bill at £1,000 per week and that she spent £2,000 per month on clothes.

She said that she drove an £80,000 Alfa Romeo car. The court also heard that she had a “preference for self employment” because “getting a job on an employed basis was something that other people did.”

Mrs Clark also said that she had enjoyed a “luxurious lifestyle” and that she would require a “substantial periodical allowance”.

The court heard that Mr Clark “at times” provided her with £10,000 in cash per month, and that she had access to credit cards. She said they had also spent up to £20,000 on a single holiday.

Mr Clark, a dad of three also told the court that he reckoned he spent £24,596 each month in “total outgoings” for his family.

Speaking about Mrs Clark’s evidence, Lady Carmichael wrote: “She also described Mr Clark as ‘very tight with his money’, and said that he exerted control over her by virtue of his decisions about spending.

“She acknowledged that she had been unhappy because he was unwilling to spend money. She referred to him as ‘tight’ in relation to his decisions to take scheduled flights rather than using private jets, and to decline to buy her a watch that cost £30,000.”

However, Lady Carmichael found that there no was no evidence that Mr Clark did anything wrong.

She added: I entirely accept that financial control and abuse can and do occur in contexts of significant wealth.

“One party may earn and control funds and unreasonably limit the access of the other party to those funds in order to keep them in a position of subjection, to coerce them into tolerating other forms of abuse, or into behaving in particular ways.

“The evidence does not support the proposition that that occurred in this case. While I accept that Mrs Clark would have liked Mr Clark to spend more money than he did, Mrs Clark’s own evidence demonstrates that this is not a situation in which Mr Clark sought to control or coerce her to behave in a particular way, by restricting her access to funds, or placing conditions, particularly unreasonable conditions, on her access to funds.

“Mrs Clark also gave evidence and submitted that the sums paid in relation to aliment since separation were a means by which Mr Clark exercised financial control over her. The provision has in fact been reasonably generous.

“The total aliment directed to Mrs Clark and to the support of the children while in her care has been £8,500 per month.”

Sir Arnold Clark died aged 89 in April 2017. He was the son of a steelworker and born in Townhead, Glasgow.

He left school at 14, and sold vegetables door-to-door that his father grew on an allotment and worked for the Co-op before being conscripted into the RAF. He then built his car sales business and was thought to have been a billionaire at the time he passed away.

His group operates 200 dealerships across the UK, selling up to a quarter of a million cars annually.

On December 24, 2004, Mr Clark’s engagement to Jillann was announced in the Times newspaper. The announcement stated: “The engagement is announced between John Arnold, eldest son of Sir Arnold and Lady Clark, of Crowhill House, Killearn, Glasgow, and Jillann Catherine, daughter of Mr and Mrs John Stewart, of Cultra, Co Down.”

The judgement tells of how the couple met in “1999 or 2000.” She was self-employed, and worked part-time from a small office in Glasgow where she had a “sewing machine and facilities for screen printing.”

Mrs Clark, a fine arts and textiles graduate from Glasgow School of Art, made cushions and bedspreads.

Her work was featured in Vogue and her products were stocked by the “prestigious” Dublin store Brown Thomas, However, the work was not profitable and she moved onto take a job as a sales person with an office furnishing company.

The couple moved to a house in Ledcameroch Road, in the exclusive Glasgow suburb of Bearsden in 2015 and Mrs Clark had access to two credit cards. The court heard how one had a limit of £8,000 and the other had one of £12,000. Mr Clark paid off the balances in full each month.

Lady Carmichael wrote of how the couple’s attitudes to money changed over the course of their marriage.

She wrote: “Towards the end of their marriage their respective attitudes to money came to differ markedly, with Mr Clark wishing to save, and Mrs Clark wishing to spend money, particularly on renovating the property at Ledcameroch Road.

“She would have preferred Mr Clark to spend more on holidays, and to use private air travel, which he did not want to do.”

Lady Carmichael valued the couple’s matrimonial property at £3,019,582.64. She wrote that Mrs Clark’s share of the property was worth £1,465,791.32.

The judge also said that Mrs Clark had “retained” £102,230.43 and had received advanced capital payments of £200,000.

Lady Carmichael ordered Mr Clark to pay his estranged spouse a capital sum of £1,163,561.

Lady Carmichael added: “I will also make an order for periodical allowance of £5,500 per month for a period of six months following decree or until payment of the capital sum, if that is more than six months.

“I will thereafter award £4,000 per month for a further period of 6 months (or the remainder of the first calendar year following divorce, after payment of the capital sum if that period is less than six months), £3,000 per month in the following year, and £2,500 per month in the year after that.”