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Poor Kate Garraway has been dealt another blow. Her Covid-hit husband’s once-successful firm has gone into liquidation with debts of almost £200,000.
I can disclose that Derek Draper’s psychotherapy company, Astra Aspera Ltd, owes £184,000 — including £125,000 in taxes. A liquidator was appointed on Tuesday to break up the firm’s assets.
‘It’s terribly sad, but Derek can’t work and has no prospect of being able to do so in the near future, so Kate thought it best to close it down,’ one of her friends tells me.
Derek Draper’s psychotherapy company, Astra Aspera Ltd, owes £184,0000 — including £125,000 in taxes
Garraway, 54, was appointed director last year after Draper, also 54, was struck down with Covid in 2020
Garraway, 54, was appointed director last year after Draper, also 54, was struck down with Covid in 2020. The television presenter revealed last month that she had accompanied him to Mexico for a medical assessment by a U.S. doctor who may be able to reverse the damage Covid did to his body.
They hired a specialist nurse to care for Draper on the 16-hour flight. He will return this month for a 28-day stay so doctors can monitor his brain, liver and lungs.
‘Covid has devastated him,’ she said last year. ‘His digestive system, his liver, his heart, his nervous system. We’re pretty sure the inflammation did pass through his brain. He is in a terrible state.’
The star had kept her worries about the business a secret despite making two emotionally charged documentaries about life with her husband
The star had kept her worries about the business a secret despite making two emotionally charged documentaries about life with her husband, including one last month called Caring For Derek.
She recently became host of ITV’s Life Stories while also caring for the couple’s children, Darcey, 15, and William, 12. But she also has to fund the round-the-clock care for her husband, whom she married in 2005.
Astra Aspera’s name is a take on the Latin phrase ‘ad astra per aspera’, which means ‘to the stars through hardship’. Its estimated ‘deficiency for creditors’ is reported in a statement of affairs signed off by Garraway earlier this month.
Draper, who set up the business in 2011, had enjoyed a money-spinning year before being hit by Covid, raking in close to £1 million.
The Mail on Sunday reported earlier this month that Garraway had been determined to save the former Labour Party spin doctor’s company, but eventually accepted that the firm would have to fold.
Source: dailymail
