Gary Dean, a Lancashire-based millionaire businessman, has published full details of his divorce settlement online in a bid to quash rumours which branded him as "tight".

The 47 year-old claimed that he was left with no option but to set up the website, in which he reveals the payout to his wife after deciding to leave her after 19 years of marriage.

Dean said that critics had accused him of being "tight", "greedy" and " walking off with millions and leaving my family almost destitute".

"Over the course of the last year I have been subject to gossip about my divorce, some of it just silly tittle-tattle, and some of it malicious," said Dean on the site.

"Much of this is circulated and perpetuated by people who haven't got a clue of what the truth is.

"They are just making wild guesses, or making it up, or are misinformed, or are making false claims irrespective of whether such claims have any basis in truth. It's a bad case of Chinese Whispers."

On the website Dean claims that he paid his ex-wife a lump sum of £3,719,000 in addition to £15,000 per year for each of his four children up to the age of 17 or the end of full time education.

He has also agreed to pay school fees, while his wife Helen gets to keep her jewellery, two cars and two private number plates.