Karen Spencer Accuses Ex-Husband Charles Spencer and His New Partner of 'Bullying' in Explosive New Legal Documents

• Karen Spencer and Charles Spencer were married for 13 years before he announced their split in June

• Karen Spencer is being sued by Charles' new partner, archaeologist Dr. Cat Jarman, who alleges that Karen shared private information about Jarman's multiple sclerosis diagnosis

• In her defense, Karen filed new court documents alleging that she was justified in sharing the information with a small circle given her shock regarding her husband's alleged affair with Jarman

• In the new filing, Karen also accuses both Jarman and Charles Spencer of "bullying"

• Jarman and Charles Spencer slammed the new allegations to the Daily Mail

Karen Spencer is accusing her ex-husband Charles Spencer of informing her that he wanted a divorce via text message earlier this year — and then launching into a bullying campaign against her, according to new court documents filed in the U.K. by Countess Spencer.

The High Court documents are part of Karen's defense after Dr. Cat Jarman, Charles' current partner, sued Karen in October for alleged misuse of private information regarding Jarman's multiple sclerosis diagnosis. In the new documents, Karen outlines the reasons she says she felt justified to discuss that information with her circle, given that she had just learned her husband was having an affair with Jarman, 42.

"Insofar as Lady Spencer shared the information in question with her immediate family, or close friends and associates, she did so in a way which was entirely justified and legitimate in the circumstances, as part of processing and coming to terms with her husband’s sudden and cruel request for a divorce," Karen Spencer's filing states. "Alternatively, given these circumstances, [Jarman] had no reasonable expectation of Lady Spencer not discussing the information in question with the limited group of individuals with whom she shared it."

According to the documents, Karen, 52, claims that on March 19, 2024, her husband of 13 years, Charles, 60 — the younger brother of the late Princess Diana — “informed her that their marriage was over,” and “did this by text message.”

Though “his behavior in the run up to this had been uncaring and deliberately provocative,” the documents continue, “the fact that he finally brought their marriage to an end by text, completely refusing to have any conversation with her in person or even provide an explanation at all, despite her repeated requests over the weeks that followed, was both cruel and inexplicable.”

Related: Charles Spencer's Girlfriend Cat Jarman Alleges His Estranged Wife Outed Her MS Diagnosis: High Court Lawsuit

Cat alleged in a High Court claim that Karen revealed Jarman’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis without her permission, and she is now suing the countess for the unauthorized release of private information. In her defense to the claim, Karen alleged that Charles and Cat had been having an affair as far back as 2022, and possibly 2021 — which Karen claims she learned after contacting Cat’s husband, Tom Jarman, this past spring.

High Court documents obtained by PEOPLE state that in a Zoom call on April 26, 2024 between the Countess and Tom, she asked him “if he was suspicious of an affair between the two of them,” and “once they compared the accounts” of Charles and Cat “the affair became clear.”

“Understandably, Lady Spencer was left shocked and devastated,” the documents read, adding “this news was hideous for Lady Spencer.”

After finding out about the alleged affair, Karen confronted Cat, as she “was at the time planning to stay in a house just a few hundred meters away from Lady Spencer’s home for a period of five weeks and have dinner in Althorp House itself while she and her daughter [with Spencer, 12-year-old Charlotte Diana] were still living there.” (After several years of marriage to Charles, Karen left her home in California to join him full time at Althorp, the Spencer family ancestral home, where Princess Diana and her siblings grew up.)

“Lady Spencer decided to confront [Cat] about the affair with her husband and explain to her that it would be inappropriate to come and have dinner in her home,” the documents continue, adding that Cat “did not deny the affair; instead she claimed that she was not the reason for the breakdown of her marriage.”

An email Karen allegedly sent to Cat was included in the court documents, which said in part, “First of all[,] as a woman, I just have to tell you that I am so disappointed in you. Turning all of the children’s lives upside down [like] this is so unbelievably immoral,” adding, “You clearly didn’t think this through.”

Calling her Charles’ “long-term mistress,” Karen said she wouldn’t have Cat at Althorp while she still lived there, adding of Cat’s relationship with Charles, “Good luck Cat, you’re in for a hell of a ride.”

In her court filing, Karen says the "actions and manner" by which both Charles and Jarman have pursued the legal situation are "oppressive and bullying, ignoring entirely the obviously understandable and legitimate nature of her sharing such information with a limited circle of those close to her (as opposed to publicly disseminating it in any way) given its relevance to the affair [Jarman] has had with her husband, the manner in which he demanded a divorce whilst refusing to provide any explanation after 13 years together, and her obvious need to process and come to terms with facing losing the life which she had built for herself, her husband and their daughter in one foul swoop."

Related: Charles Spencer, 60, Breaks Silence on Romance with Woman 18 Years His Junior amid Divorce Drama: 'I Don't Have to Pretend'

Karen also alleges in the new filing that Jarman pressured her into responding to her lawsuit even as Karen was mourning the death of her father in Canada. Jarman "instructed her [lawyers] still to press Lady Spencer, stating, 'we are aware that your client is in Canada and with her family there, but this should take no more than five minutes of her time and there can be absolutely no reason not to do so.' In the hours after her father’s death, whilst Lady Spencer was heavily grieving on Vancouver Island, [Jarman] instructed her [lawyers] to demand responses from her under the threat of immediately forcing her into Court in London (at the same time as a similar threat was made by Earl Spencer)."

In statements to the Daily Mail about Karen's new filing, both Charles and Cat fired back.

"The stress of this matter, which could have been resolved by Karen Spencer in a few minutes many months ago, further seriously impacts my health," Jarman said. "My full response to this outrage will be with the Courts at the earliest possible opportunity, and at the same time we are urgently looking at all available legal redress, including that relating to the breaking of legally binding oaths.'

Meanwhile, Charles told the Daily Mail, "The notion that I would end my marriage by text is an absurd attempt to blacken my name. Karen ended the marriage, after endless threats to do so over the years, in early March. She asked me to confirm the end of the marriage in a text of 18 March and my reply that day was a simple acceptance of her decision. I have those texts still, and will share them in court when I clear my name."

Charles and Cat, along with the Reverend Richard Coles, co-host the podcast The Rabbit Hole Detectives, and Cat, an archaeologist, conducted an archaeological dig at Althorp.

In a Dec. 4 interview with The Daily Mail, Cat spoke for the first time about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, which she received in 2016 — calling the news “utterly devastating.”

“I thought I would be discriminated against because of it, because it is a disability,” she said of why she initially chose to keep her diagnosis private. “I thought it would affect my career, destroy my livelihood, affect the way people regarded me. I did not want to be defined by it, or my career limited by it.”

“Since then I have worked very hard indeed to keep my MS hidden, as should be my prerogative. So only a handful of people have known — and Charles wasn’t one of them. I’d been seeing him, romantically, for only two months or three months, and still hadn’t told him,” she continued.

Cat claimed that Karen found out that she has MS “from someone close to me” during a conversation around whether Cat and Charles were having an affair (which Jarman insists didn't happen). Karen then told Charles, according to Cat.

“But in the course of a conversation about whether I had been having an affair with her husband — which I can categorically say I had not been, we were very much just friends and colleagues until after the marriage had ended — Karen learned that I have MS. It was also confirmed to her that this was not something that was widely known. And yet she then went to Charles and said, ‘You do know she has MS, don’t you?’ ” Cat alleged to The Daily Mail.

Cat further claimed that Karen shared the news of her MS diagnosis with “a number of people”: “I’m still not entirely sure who else she shared this private and sensitive information with, which is the point of this legal action," Cat told The Daily Mail.

After Charles allegedly found out about her diagnosis in May, Cat claimed she then spent the next five months trying to learn who Karen had told, which led to her lawyers sending letters (which she claims were ignored) before raising it to a lawsuit. On Oct. 10, The Telegraph reported that Cat filed a lawsuit against Karen, alleging misuse of private information.

In June, Charles announced that he and Karen were divorcing after 13 years of marriage. The former couple wed at Althorp in 2011 and share a 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte Diana. Both Charles and Karen were previously married — Charles, 60, shares four children with his first wife, Victoria Lockwood, and two children with his second wife, Caroline Freud, and Karen, 52, shares two daughters from her first marriage to Hollywood producer Mark Gordon.

“It is immensely sad,” Charles told The Mail on Sunday in the statement announcing that he and Karen were divorcing. “I just want to devote myself to all my children, and to my grandchildren, and I wish Karen every happiness in the future.”

In another twist to the story, Charles reportedly retained the same divorce attorney that King Charles did when the future king and Princess Diana divorced in 1996.

Related: Charles Spencer, 60, Breaks Silence on Romance with Woman 18 Years His Junior amid Divorce Drama: 'I Don't Have to Pretend'

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Speaking on Nov. 24 to The Mail on Sunday, Charles said of his relationship with Cat, "I'm too old for hearts and flowers stuff, but the best way to describe it is that with Cat, I can be myself." He continued, "She knows who I am. Who I really am. I don't have to pretend to be something I am not."

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