Ex-husband of deceased Polish woman denies she was a ‘call girl’

The grief-stricken former husband of a Polish nightclub boss accused of being a ‘call girl’ who conned her financier lover out of millions has hit back at the shocking claims made about her – following her sudden death. Magdalena Zalinska’s body was discovered by police who broke down the door of her apartment in Clapham, south London. She was being sued in the High Court by the brother of Danny Truell over claims she obtained £4million ($4.8million) by ‘undue influence’ before he died of a neurological condition aged 55 in 2019. Mr Truell’s brother had accused divorced mother-of-two Ms Zalinska, 44, of being a sexual worker who got her hands on a huge slice of her lover’s £18million ($21.9million) estate.

But her ex-husband Wojtek Zalinska (pictured) denied those claims and told MailOnline: ‘That was absolute rubbish, she was never a call girl. Never. I do not know why such hurtful thing were said about her in the court. That is wrong and should not have been said. She is not here to defend herself now so I will do it.’ Mr Zalinska said he plans to fly to London to meet with his sons Jan and Aleksandra and make funeral arrangements. He revealed he and his former wife divorced 20 years ago but kept in contact. He last saw her a year ago. Ms Zalinska was found dead in her Clapham flat on Saturday after neighbors told police that they were concerned for her welfare. Officers broke down the door to the ground floor £600,000 ($730,000) flat where the body was discovered.

Ms Zalinska, a glamorous nightclub owner, who was left more than £1million ($1.2million) in Mr Truell’s (pictured) will, denied the allegations, insisting they had a ‘romantic and loving relationship’ for 14 years. Mr Truell’s brother Edi, 61, who is also a City financier, claimed that although she had a sexual relationship with his brother, she was his paid carer from 2012 and did not live with him. His lawyers claimed in court that she was a ‘call girl’ – a claim she rejected. Danny Truell, a lifelong Labor Party member, was a contemporary of former prime minister Boris Johnson at Balliol College, Oxford, and frequently faced him in debates. He went on to become a hugely successful fund manager. After running Goldman Sachs’s asset management arm, he moved to Britain’s biggest charity, the Wellcome Trust, as its chief investment officer in 2005. 

In 12 years, he grew assets under management from £12.3billion ($14.9billion) to £20.9billion ($25.4billion). He also allowed it to double the amount it donated a year to more than £1billion ($1.2billion). He divorced his wife of 16 years, Naomi, in 2011, and the following year he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis which later became a form of motor nurone disease. In the High Court, Mr Justice Michael Green said Mr Truell had considerable personal wealth but lived ‘an apparently frugal lifestyle,’ did not drive, have expensive hobbies or go on many holidays, and lived in ‘a modest and poorly furnished basement and ground floor maisonette’ near Clapham Junction. During his illness he was ‘dependent on alcohol,’ the judge added. Pictured: Lavender Gardens, Clapham, house where Danny Truell had an apartment. 

In his will, he described Ms Zalinska, a Polish national, who has also struggled with alcohol, as his ‘partner and dependent.’ The court battle was over a series of transfers to her before Mr Truell died. These included £1.34million ($1.63million) paid between 2013 and 2018 to a company through which she operated her London nightclub, Southwark Rooms. Another £915,000 ($1.1million) went to her directly in electronic transfers, £1.366million ($1.66million) on spending and withdrawals using his debit card, while he also transferred to her his interest in the flat she had previously rented from him in Clapham, where her body was discovered.

Lawyers for Edi Truell (pictured) said she had also used her Southwark nightclub as a ‘front’ to ‘extract’ huge sums of money that have since disappeared. In a hearing earlier this year, Mr Justice Michael Green said Ms Zalinska was ‘rightly, in my view, offended by any suggestion that she was not in a deep and loving relationship with the deceased, or that she had taken advantage of him.’ Ms Zalinska claimed to have met Mr Truell at the end of his previous marriage and started a relationship with him in 2004. The couple moved into the basement flat in Clapham in 2016. Mr Truell’s brother and former solicitor John Rayner Hatchard claimed, as executors of his estate, that evidence casts doubt on the ‘quality’ of the relationship. Their barrister Edward Hicks told the judge that Mr Truell had two ‘very separate’ lives – one with his family and the other with Ms Zalinska, with whom he had a ‘very strange relationship.’

He said a crucial question at a trial would be if Mr Truell were in a relationship akin to ‘husband and wife’ or whether it had been ‘marked by promiscuity,’ which he did not know about. ‘Is this a lady who is presenting a false picture of her relationship to Danny?’ he told a hearing in February. ‘We have evidence that she was in relationships with other people.’ A neighbor called Ms Zalinska an ‘odd fish’ who didn’t fit in the well-off street where she lived. The street where she lives is a quiet and mainly affluent stretch of south London real estate where properties routinely sell for over £1million ($1.2millon), and one of her neighbors described Miss Zalinska as ‘polite but distinctly odd’ and said her presence was at odds with the atmosphere of the genteel road. ‘She was perfectly polite, but to be frank she was just a bit too interesting for our road,’ said the neighbor, who gave his first name as Rob.

And he added that her sudden death had not come out of the blue for him, commenting: ‘it wasn’t a great shock to be honest, she just struck me as someone who was hanging around the wrong kind of people.’ He said he had seen odd types coming and going from her home and suspected she might be wrapped up in drugs. ‘The last time I saw her was a few weeks ago when I saw her coming out of her flat,’ he said. ‘My comment to my girlfriend was that she seemed well dodgy. It was blindingly obvious that there might be drug use going on.’ A Met Police spokesman said: ‘Officers forced entry and found a 46-year-old woman deceased. Her next of kin have been informed.The death is being treated as unexpected, though initial enquiries determined it was not suspicious.’ A full trial of the £4million ($4.8million) claim against Ms Zalinska was set for next year. Lawyers for Ms Zalinska and the estate of Mr Truell refused to comment. Pictured: The flat door inside the property that was smashed in by Metropolitan Police officers.

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