Meet the judge who quoted King Lear to decide divorce settlement figure

A High Court judge quoted Shakespeare's 'King Lear' while deciding a settlement figure in an ongoing divorce case.

Justice Mostyn considered the amount a pilates instructor needed following her divorce from a wealthy banker and referred to a passage in Act 2 Scene 4 of King Lear, saying that Lear had "pointed out" that "needs are exceedingly hard to reason", the Independent reported.

The judge decided that the woman should get around 1.2 million pounds worth of assets and even recited the beginning of the passage "O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous" - in a footnote in a written ruling.

He said the woman felt "great bitterness" towards her ex-husband and that she had compiled a statement which seemed to have been "written with a pen dipped in vitriol".