An Twickenham heiress hopes to overturn a court ruling allowing her former hubby to claim half her estate.

Linda Berkeley has gone to an Appeal Court after two judges in lower courts found there was "no good reason" the wealth of the marriage should be evenly shared between the parties.

Ms Berkeley, 53, who has British and American citizenship, inherited £514,000 aged eight when her engineering magnate father Frederick Berkeley died.

But Ms Berkeley, who divorced Kosovan immigrant Ardian Bulliqi in 2005 after a stormy 13-year marriage, says her fortune has dwindled to £86,000 after years of supporting him and his family.

Speaking from her £450,000 home, she told the Daily Mail: "It was my father's money and I allowed this man into my life and I allowed him to take it. I know that it's because of my own stupidity and that bothers me a lot. It's heartbreaking."

She added that "the yardstick of equality" had been wrongly applied in the initial judgment at Kingston county court because her husband had not contributed equally to the marriage.

"He didn't contribute to my assets growing, he depleted them," she said. "I was both the husband and wife. I was the homemaker, child carer and financial provider."

Ms Berkeley and her ex-hubby, who have a 16-year-old son, moved to Twickenham in 1991.

The married a year later and she bought another property in Hampton Wick, where Mr Bulliqi started a car washing business.

A judge at Kingston County Court ordered Ms Berkeley hand over the business property worth £1million to her husband.

He was ordered to pay £102,000 in maintenance over the next five years. After various mortgages and loans were paid off they would be left with almost equal shares in a family fortune of about £1.6 million.

But at an Appeal Court hearing yesterday James Turner QC, representing Ms Berkeley, told the judge: "She bought the house they lived in from her own inheritance and with a mortgage that she financed. He has never paid the mortgage.

"Fairness demands something other than equality in this case. There are very powerful reasons, indeed overwhelming reasons, to justify and require a departure from the equality principle."

Judgment was reserved to a later date.