EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: 'Wonga coup' mercenary Simon Mann, father of Prince Harry's ... trends now
His life is beyond easy emulation, encompassing, as it does, service in the SAS, exploits in Sierra Leone and Angola which made him a multi-millionaire, and, later, heading the so-called 'Wonga Coup' – a failed attempt to depose Teodoro Obiang, President of Equatorial Guinea – after which he survived malaria during five years in African prisons, 18 months of which were spent, in leg-irons, in solitary confinement in a cell '6ft wide and seven paces long'.
But don't assume that, at the age of 71, Simon Mann is in the mood to slip into a nostalgic dotage.
Quite the reverse: I can reveal that the Old Etonian former Scots Guards officer has left his third wife, the vivacious Amanda, mother of four of his seven children, and is now apparently being comforted by a woman more than 20 years his junior.
'Simon and Amanda have split up,' a friend of the couple tells me, adding that Mann has moved out of the house on the south coast where they've lived since shortly after his release in 2009.
Now involved in growing medicinal cannabis in North Macedonia, Mann declines to comment.
Old Etonian former Scots Guards officer Simon Mann has left his third wife, the vivacious Amanda, mother of four of his seven children, and is now apparently being comforted by a woman more than 20 years his junior. Pictured: Simon with Amanda in 2012
Jack Mann (right) is a friend of Prince Harry and one of Simon's sons from his first marriage
But a friend says it's not a temporary separation. 'They are getting divorced,' the chum tells
