Director who won compensation after wife died in paramedic blunder sees payout slashed over affair Awarding Mr Taaffe £119,048, he said: "I consider that a discount of 40% should be made for the risk that there would have been a divorce, or an ending of the relationship so as to terminate any dependency." Of the claim for the loss of "a spouse's love and affection," he said: "I do not consider it appropriate to make any award under this head. The evidence suggests that the marriage was exceptionally strained at this time and I have found there was a high risk of the marriage failing...An award under this head would be highly artificial. The High Court in London heard that Mr Taaffe, 69, had been involved in a long-running affair with Leslie Zobiah, who bore him a now 14-year-old daughter and fell pregnant to him nine months after Mrs Taafe's death in 2007. Miss Zobiah started out as Mr Taaffe's PA at his aviation industry business, Aviation Turbine Services, in 1992. After she rose to become a director of the company, the affair began and she gave birth to his lovechild in 1997. Angus Piper, NHS counsel, had told the court: "It must have been difficult for Eleanor to see her husband going off to work everyday with a woman with whom he had admitted to having a long affair, who remained single...who was the mother of a girl born to Mr Taaffe and who was also the co-director and co-owner of his business." Mr Taaffe, from St Albans, claimed the affair had ended in 2000 and said he had no intention of leaving her. However, the court was told that he rekindled his relationship with Miss Zobiah after his wife's death and they wed in November 2007. Mrs Taaffe, an "extremely successful," £64,000-a-year quality control manager for Lonza Biologics, in Slough, died nine months earlier. An ambulance was called after she suffered chest pains, but paramedics from East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust failed to take her or tell her to go to hospital. She collapsed whilst out shopping and died six days later. The judge ruled that, had Mrs Taaffe, 50, been referred to hospital then and there, tests would have revealed her true condition and she would have survived. He said the paramedics' care "fell below the standard expected of the reasonably competent paramedic and was accordingly negligent."