Cocky Clarkson caught in headlights

London - Trapped in the scented gardens of her luxury holiday resort, the past week must have been utter torture for Francie Clarkson. It appears she cannot bear to be with her husband, Jeremy. And no wonder.

Just as the couple arrived in Barbados last Sunday, the story broke that the Top Gear presenter was having an affair with Phillipa Sage, 42, an events organiser who has been among the entourage on Clarkson’s international Top Gear Live tour.

Francie is having to deal with claims that Sage spent several nights with Clarkson as he travelled around Australia, South Africa and Norway.

The family, including three children, is sharing a £2 000-a-night villa at the luxurious Coral Reef Club. The normally bombastic Clarkson has been in a low and preoccupied mood.

And Francie? One might wonder why she hasn’t already thrown Jeremy’s floral Bermuda shorts out of their villa and bolted the door.

Well, it’s not as simple as that when you’re facing the disintegration of a union that has lasted 18 years and produced three children.

Francie, 49, is her husband’s manager and mentor. When they met, Top Gear was watched by a relatively small number of car obsessives. It was Francie who encouraged her husband to cultivate a more aggressive on-screen persona, to make Top Gear more controversial.

The unlikely success of the show has afforded the Clarksons a fabulous lifestyle. The family home is a country estate in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, and Jeremy and Francie are key members of the set there. The group includes UK premier David Cameron.

So, what do we know of Francie’s rival, Sage? Well, it would seem it is not the first time she has become embroiled with a well-known figure. She is very tall, almost 1.8m, blonde and well aware of her own sex appeal.

According to one friend, in the 1990s Sage had an affair with a well-known sportsman who was in a long-term relationship with the mother of his children.

The friend insists, however, that Sage is not some cynical Wag, who targets celebrities. Sage has had a number of boyfriends, but has never married. She has a five-year-old son from a previous relationship.

It is not clear precisely when Sage met Clarkson, but a year ago the presenter wrote about enjoying being taken for a spin along with Sage in an £80 000 Maserati Quattroporte during the New Zealand leg of the Top Gear Live tour.

The headline? “Lie back, leggy Phillipa, while I have some fun.”

Early last month, Sage and Clarkson were photographed by the pool at a Joburg hotel. They were also together while touring Norway.

Confronted about the claims of the affair last week, Sage insisted they were “nonsense”. She added: “Jeremy and I are friends. I have worked with him, er, them (the Top Gear team) for years.”

What of Clarkson himself? There is no doubt he glories in his crudeness. He likes to go out drinking with his male friends. On these occasions, it is his habit to make ribald remarks to women he is introduced to.

One female production assistant who has worked with Clarkson on Top Gear over the years says: “As a woman, you just have to put up with the smutty jokes and the looks. He is often really rude. All the big bosses at the BBC seem almost scared of him. It seems he can do no wrong, which rather seems to have gone to his head.”

Yet such is the power of celebrity – his show reaches 350 million viewers worldwide – that when he goes out drinking he is frequently chatted up by starstruck women.

This is not the first time he has found himself in trouble. In 2002 he was spotted passionately kissing a television producer Elaine Bedell in a car.

Other rumours circulating about Clarkson in media circles include an incident that is alleged to have taken place in Cape Town last year during the World Cup.

Clarkson, says a source, was caught by staff in “a compromising situation” with a woman in a toilet of a luxury hotel. A newspaper was going to run the story, but it was hushed up on the orders of senior executives on the paper, for whom Clarkson writes a column.

– The Independent