A WORCESTERSHIRE woman whose daughter successfully sued her father for private school fees is now facing a bankruptcy order slapped on her by her ex-husband.

Linda Lavelle and her ex-husband Callum ran a computer consultancy company based in Dunblane, Scotland, which ran into financial difficulties and closed.

In April, 1998, Mrs Lavelle, of Peopleton, near Pershore, was sequestrated - made bankrupt - on the application of her ex-husband in a dispute over the company's only asset, a £20,000 Porsche.

This week, at Stirling Sheriff Court in Scotland, Mrs Lavelle's solicitor Frank Burr told the court that accountants HLB Kidsons, her trustees-in-bankruptcy, claimed she owed the firm money.

She could be ordered to pay more than £18,000 to creditors, who include her ex-husband.

HLB Kidsons also wants the court to extend the usual three-year bankruptcy period to five in her case. It was due to expire this year.

The firm alleged Mrs Lavelle did not make a full and frank disclosure of her financial affairs required under the Bankruptcy Act when she failed to reveal she had a financial interest in the thatched cottage in Peopleton, where she now lives.

It claimed it would "not be in the interests of her creditors" for her liability to cease in May 2001, under the automatic discharge procedure.

Adjourned

The case was adjourned for a date to be fixed.

Last month, Mr Lavelle, who still lives in Dunblane, was ordered to pay his 17-year-old daughter Nicole's £6,600-a-year fees at The King's School, Worcester.

The computer expert nets £112,000-a-year as the vice-president of Massachusetts-based Highground Systems.

He stands to become a millionaire if a proposed takeover of the firm goes ahead.