Considered in isolation, there was nothing particularly eventful
about 41-year-old Nicole Falkingham’s appearance at Liverpool
Magistrates’ Court on October 31 last year — though the glamorous
architect’s wife certainly cut a more elegant figure than the usual
petty criminals in court that day.
After hearing a charge of theft read out against her — Mrs Falkingham
was accused of stealing £37,000 worth of goods, including a laptop and
watches, from her husband Jonathan — she was told her case was being
transferred to Liverpool Crown Court.
Nicole, who separated acrimoniously from her husband in June last
year, was due to appear in court again next month. But as the date of
her crown court hearing approached, friends says she was increasingly
angry about the position she had found herself in.
Happier times: Nicole Falkingham at her 40th birthday in October 2011
Last week, however, an unimaginably tragic chain of events culminated
in Nicole being found frozen to death in the back of a friend’s car
after a long and heavy drinking session with friends at a Liverpool wine
bar.
Toxicology reports revealed she had suffered hypothermia and acute alcohol intoxication.
Police have questioned a couple who went to collect Nicole from the
Vinci wine bar last Thursday night on suspicion of manslaughter. They
were also questioned about the cultivation of cannabis. The pair have
been bailed pending further inquiries.
For those who knew her, Nicole’s sudden death has stirred up deeper
questions about how things went so badly wrong for a woman who appeared
to be enjoying a charmed life.
As the beautiful wife of Jonathan Falkingham, co-founder of Urban
Splash, an award-winning architectural company in the North of England,
Nicole belonged to the wealthy clique of professionals who dominated
Liverpool’s social scene.
Jonathan and Nicole Falkingham were regulars at some of Liverpool’s trendiest bars and clubs
The couple, known as ‘property royalty’, were regulars at some of the
city’s trendiest bars and clubs. Twice a year they threw lavish,
catered parties at their home — a 17th-century farmhouse that Nicole’s
husband transformed from a derelict shell into a £1 million designer
home.
Nicole was devoted to Jonathan’s two children, 14-year-old Ella, from
a previous relationship, and Lucas, 13, from a previous marriage. The
children were attendants at Nicole and Jonathan’s wedding in 2008 and
were regular visitors to their home. The four of them went skiing
together as a family.
The Falkinghams led a glamorous and affluent life in which they
worked hard and partied hard. But their marriage — which was Nicole’s
third and Jonathan’s second — was not as blissful as it seemed on the
surface.
According to one friend, Nicole was desperate to have a baby but had
failed to conceive. ‘She loved kids, so it was really sad that she
couldn’t have any of her own,’ she says. ‘Jonny was under pressure at
work, the business was faring badly, and there were tensions between
them because she continued to spend his money willy-nilly.’
Problems: Nicole was arrested last year on suspicion of stealing her husband’s property after they split
Nicole’s arrest on August 18 last year on a charge of stealing her
husband’s property showed how desperate she had become about the
breakdown of her marriage. The couple had separated in mid-June last
year, and both had embarked on new relationships at the time of the
theft.
According to three sources who spoke to the Mail this week, Nicole
not only took her husband’s laptop but also hacked into his emails, and
forwarded one ‘embarrassing’ email — said to have been sent to a wealthy
neighbour — to everyone in his address book.
A source said: ‘Nicole was so mad, she sent it to all the contacts in
his address book. Lots of his business contacts got the email, as did
most members of staff at Urban Splash. It was pretty embarrassing.’
Another source at Urban Splash confirms this. ‘Jonathan and Nicole
were going through a very messy, bitter divorce that had exploded into
the public arena. Apparently, Nicole found some emails her husband had
sent to a neighbour. She was absolutely livid.
‘She was so annoyed, she forwarded the emails to loads of employees at Urban Splash. It was a major embarrassment for Jonathan.’
A fellow property developer adds: ‘Jonathan was absolutely furious.
That’s when the gloves really came off, and their split became total
war.
‘She told friends they were in a bitter divorce, and there were rumours galore about affairs.’
At Oak Farm, the award-winning property in the Otterspool area of
Liverpool where the Falkinghams lived, there were signs that all was not
well. Friends say Nicole had long disliked living there, and not only
because they had been burgled several times.
As long ago as 2005, Nicole expressed reservations about the house.
‘It’s very fortress-like. It sort of says don’t come near me,’ she said.
‘It’s not a house that puts its arms around you and gives you a hug.
‘Do I sound like I hate it? It’s incomparable to anywhere I’ve ever lived before.’
The house was certainly a far cry from Nicole’s humble beginnings.
Born in October 1971, Nicola Paulette — she later changed her name to
Nicole — was the daughter of painter and decorator Kevin Mather and his
wife Linda.
Her father was just 16 years old when he married Linda, who was 20
and pregnant. Nicole’s childhood home was among the densely packed
terrace houses of Liverpool’s Old Swan district — a world away from the
palatial home on the other side of the city where she ended up living.
Her parents divorced and her mother remarried, to a police officer,
but Linda died aged 45 from cirrhosis of the liver when Nicole was 26
and still married to her first husband.
After a stint as a sales assistant at Marks & Spencer, Nicole was
working as a receptionist at Urban Splash when she met architect
Jonathan Falkingham, who had graduated with a first-class honours degree
from Liverpool University.
Nicole became his personal assistant and in 2003 they began dating.
Acrimonious:
Friends say Nicole had become increasingly angry about he position she
found herself in after splitting from Jonathan
Shock:
Nicole’s former husband Jonathan Falkingham co-founded Urban Splash, a
company at the forefront of property development in the North-West
A source close to the couple said: ‘They would go everywhere and do
everything together. He was always taking her across the country to
meetings, and it wasn’t long before people realised that something was
going on.’
She became the boss’s wife but remained popular with staff. ‘She was a
lovely person,’ one source says. ‘She was a bit mental, a real party
animal, but always great to be around.
‘Even after she married Jonny, she remained down-to-earth. She was
never snooty and always found time to ask people about their own lives.
‘They seemed a solid couple. People were surprised when they split.’
Jonathan Falkingham co-founded Urban Splash in 1993, and for many
years it was at the forefront of property development in the
North-West, renovating decaying former industrial mills and warehouses
into exclusive loft-style apartments and executive homes.
The company was widely credited with kick-starting the trend for
urban living in cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Bristol.
But the recession led to a slowdown in the property market, and last
September the company posted pre-tax losses of £9.3 million, and debts
of £234 million in its latest accounts.
Jonathan Falkingham said he and Nicole’s friends and family are ‘totally devastated by her tragic and untimely passing’
Both before and after her relationship with Jonathan Falkingham,
Nicole was a fixture on Liverpool’s social scene. One friend recalls an
occasion, ten years ago, when he found her distressed and crying at the
bar in Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre after the break-up of a previous
relationship.
He says: ‘She looked terrible, and we went over to see if she was all
right. She had been crying, and she said she had been sitting in there
all day on her own.
‘Her long-term boyfriend at the time, a manager at Marks &
Spencer, had apparently dumped her, and she seemed distraught. We ended
up spending the night with her getting absolutely plastered.’
More recently, Nicole appeared to be moving on with her life after
her split from Jonathan. The couple reached an out-of-court financial
settlement before Christmas, and were said to be on a more ‘amicable’
footing.
Bill Maynard, a former Urban Splash director, says: ‘Nicole had a
tough time with the separation and she was very upset, but she seemed to
be moving on.
‘She’d been off the drink for a couple of weeks, and it just seems like what happened that final night was bad luck.’
He says Jonathan is devastated by his estranged wife’s death. ‘I have
spoken to him, and he is in a terrible way. He’s so shocked by what’s
happened.’
In a statement released this week, a spokesperson for Jonathan
Falkingham said he and Nicole’s friends and family ‘are totally
devastated by her tragic and untimely passing. This is an incredibly
difficult time for everybody involved.’
Despite recent changes in her life, friends say Nicole appeared to be
holding everything together in recent weeks, and had had a new
boyfriend for the past eight months.
Certainly there was no sign that she was hell-bent on
self-destruction. Even if she was drinking to forget, no one could have
predicted that her night out with friends would end so tragically.
A family friend says: ‘Nicole was devastated by the break-up. What she’s gone through is horrific.
‘She had a tragic life. Her mum died when she was young, and she desperately wanted to have children but couldn’t.
‘But she was a special person, and everyone who met her remembered her. She was a one-off who really stood out from the crowd.
‘Her death is a tragedy for everyone who knew her.’
On the night Nicole died she had been drinking in a wine bar with four friends
On the night she died, staff at the wine bar where Nicole had been
drinking with four friends since 4pm say she suddenly became ‘comatose’
after drinking several glasses of wine.
One employee said: ‘I’ve seen plenty of people get drunk, but I have
never seen someone turn as quickly as that. She said she was starting to
feel sleepy, then she just went. Her head went right back. I’ve never
seen anything like it. I tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t speak.’
The staff member said he called the police, who instructed him to
call an ambulance. Before he had the chance to do so, however, a couple
of friends arrived at the bar and took Nicole away.
She was found dead after apparently falling asleep on the back seat
of a car on a friend’s driveway. Wearing a hooded quilted jacket and
Hunter wellington boots, she had spent the night in the car in sub-zero
temperatures. Her body was found the next morning.
Nicole’s friends lament the fact that such a vibrant, beautiful woman
in her prime should have lost her life in such a pointless way.
But given the tumultuous events of recent months, it seems true, too,
that Nicole Falkingham’s dreams of living happily ever after perished
long before her frozen body was found.
YNaija.com
