New York Judge Rules You Tube Divorcee's Behaviour 'spousal Abuse'

A British actress who took her battle with her millionaire husband onto the stage of the internet, posting videos that lambasted him on YouTube that gained an audience of millions, has been ordered to leave her New York home by a judge who has ruled her behavior amounted to "spousal abuse".

Tricia Walsh Smith, whose previous claim to fame had been bit parts in the Benny Hill Show and a play she wrote called Bonkers, had theYouTube videos professionally filmed in the Park Avenue apartment she has shared for 13 years with her husband. In them she claimed Philip Smith, a Broadway producer aged 77, was trying to evict her from their home and leave her penniless.

In a six-minute rant, she railed against "male chauvinist pigs" and exhorted "woman warriors" to flock to her cause.

She also revealed embarrassing details, notably that he had a stash of the impotence drug Viagra despite the fact they never had sex. The videos became a YouTube sensation, attracting more than 4m hits.

But this week's ruling shows that the old power of the scales of justice remains even more powerful than the new power of the web. Smith sued for divorce on the grounds that the videos were a form of spousal abuse, and Judge Harold Beeler of New York state supreme court agreed.

The judge said Walsh Smith had embarked on a "callous campaign to embarrass and humiliate her husband and his daughters. Smith has been publicly humiliated to an unprecedented extent."

She must now quit the apartment within a month. Smith in turn is legally bound to pay her $750,000 under the terms of their pre-nuptial agreement.

"I'm terribly sorry that it came to this, but I'm obviously happy with the result," Smith said after the case concluded.

Walsh Smith insists she has no regrets about her dalliance with marital meltdown via the internet. Her motivation was to defend the rights of women who should not be evicted from their homes for no reason. "It brought attention to my plight and the plight of a lot of other women," she said.