A FATHER who lavished a luxury lifestyle on his long lost daughter after they reunited has been cleared of attacking her — after a court heard how she’d used his money to fund a secret ‘double life’.

Company director David Lafferty, 67, told of his shock when he discovered that Zoe Swan, 35, was going behind his back for five-star hotel trysts with a married man, whom he said had previously ‘beaten her to a pulp’.

Mr Lafferty, of Greenock, bought his daughter a Mercedes car, gave her a job, cleared her debts, provided his granddaughter with a private education and treated them to holidays in America, the town’s sheriff court heard.

But he told Miss Swan — with whom he was reunited in 2011 after around 30 years apart — that he was cutting her out of his will and shutting off her access to a bank account after discovering what she’d been doing, a trial was told.

In an emotional recorded police interview after his arrest, which was played to the court, Mr Lafferty said: “I cut all money off to Zoe and she didn’t like it one bit.

“She has been leading a double life that I knew nothing about.

“I’m absolutely devastated. She has broke my heart.

“It’s as though my daughter is a Jekyll and Hyde.” 

His rejection of her last November — including him asking her to leave his home — led to a fiery confrontation shortly before Christmas when Miss Swan returned to discover that he’d thrown out around £1,000 worth of diet pills she’d bought herself.

Miss Swan claimed that Mr Lafferty had grabbed her by the hair, pushed her to the floor and repeatedly struck her on the head to her injury before attempting to push her down a set of stairs.

She waited for two days after the December 10 flashpoint before reporting her father to the police, who found that she had a small cut to her upper lip and some swelling to one of her cheeks.

Mr Lafferty told the court his daughter ‘went ballistic’ with him and that she was a ‘raging bull’ as she picked up a set of step ladders and tried to hit him with them.

He said that she threw items from a cupboard into his hallway, living room and bathroom as she hunted for her diet pills before hurling a porcelain ornament at him which struck his face and left him bleeding.

Miss Swan told the court: “I worked for my father. I cooked and cleaned and looked after him too.

“I gave him a fabulous life, as he did me.”

Of the money she spent, she said: “It was a joint bank account and my wages were paid into it.”

Asked if she’d emptied the contents of a cupboard into various rooms in the flat, Miss Swan replied: “I was angry, yeah.”

But she disagreed with defence lawyer Edward Sweeney that she had become physical towards her father first and that she tried to hit him with a kettle and threw a plant pot at him ‘because the money was going to disappear’.

Mr Lafferty, who declined access to a solicitor following his arrest, told the court: “I told Zoe that I was going to pay for nothing other than my granddaughter’s private education.

“The only times I put a hand on Zoe was to stop her from hitting me.”

Mr Lafferty, whose company manufactures high pressure water jet equipment, said that he helped his daughter financially in order to restore her credit rating and even offered to help her to get a home of her own.  

He said that he found out about her double life from a friend whose wife Miss Swan had confided in — then discovered a card statement for ‘five star hotels and flights all over the place’.

Mr Lafferty — who said he’d collapsed with a suspected heart attack a few weeks earlier — said: “My friend phoned me and told me that before she came to Scotland Zoe had an affair with a married man who’d put her in hospital twice.

“He beat her to a pulp, and to save his marriage he forced her to have an abortion.

“For her to go back to this other man, to me that was not right.

“I only took exception to the fact that she was spending all my money, including my pension money, to do it.”

Mr Lafferty, of Johnston Street in Greenock, denied being angry with his daughter, adding: “I was very disappointed but that’s all.”

Sheriff Daniel Kelly acquitted him after finding the case not proven.