A family court judge has drawn the marriage of British conservative politician Michael Gove and wife Sarah Vine to a close.
At a hearing in the Central Family Court in London on Thursday, Judge Lynn Roberts granted Miss Vine a divorce decree on the grounds that the marriage had irretrievably broken down.
She also approved the release of some documentation.
Documents list the couple as Sarah Rosemary Vine and Michael Andrew Gove.
They show Miss Vine had petitioned for divorce and named Mr Gove as the “respondent”.
A “certificate of entitlement to a decree” said Miss Vine had “sufficiently proved” she was entitled to a divorce on the grounds that the marriage had “irretrievably broken down” and the “facts found proved being the respondent’s unreasonable behaviour”.
Miss Vine had signed a “statement in support of divorce…” – and printed her name as Miss Sarah Rosemary Vine – on November 30th.
The judge made a decree nisi pronouncement in less than 10 seconds.
A marriage does not formally end until a decree absolute is pronounced.
Neither Miss Vine, a journalist, nor Mr Gove, who was appointed secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities in September, were at the hearing, which was staged in public.
No members of the public, apart from one journalist, were at the hearing.
