LONDON -- Former Beatle Paul McCartney and his estranged wife Heather Mills go back to court on Monday for a scheduled five-day hearing that could see their high-profile divorce battle resolved.

McCartney, 65, and Mills, 40, were last in court in October but they failed to hammer out an agreement on a financial settlement in what is claimed could be one of the costliest divorces in British legal history.

Divorce hearings are normally held behind closed doors in Britain, with strict limits on what can be reported even once a judgment has been given. As nothing has yet been finalized, rumor has filled the vacuum in the media.

The main claims have been how much Mills could get from the singer-songwriter and whether a settlement would include a confidentiality clause, barring her from talking about their four-year marriage.

On Saturday, the Daily Mail newspaper claimed the singer-songwriter would offer Mills 55 million pounds, without citing sources.

She would take a 20-million-pound lump sum and a further 2.5 million pounds each year for 14 years until their four-year-old daughter, Beatrice, turns 18, with a substantial amount set aside for security, it added.

In an interview on British television last November the charity campaigner, a former model who lost a leg in a road accident in 1993, claimed she had received death threats.

The newspaper also said McCartney would get equal visiting rights and retain his extensive property portfolio while Mills would agree not to live abroad for at least the next five years.

The deal would be the highest divorce settlement in Britain, outstripping the 48 million pounds businessman John Chairman was told to pay his former wife last year, it added.

McCartney is estimated to be worth 825 million pounds, but last year's Sunday Times Rich List -- which describes itself as the definitive guide to wealth -- made a 100-million-pound allowance for a possible divorce settlement.

The musician married Mills in 2002, four years after his first wife, Linda, died from breast cancer. They announced an "amicable" split in May 2006, but their dealings since have been anything but friendly.

In particular, private court documents detailing unflattering claims against McCartney appeared in newspapers. Mills denied being behind the leak.

She has since attacked Britain's tabloid newspapers for waging a hate campaign against her, comparing her treatment to that of princess Diana and Kate McCann, whose four-year-old daughter disappeared in May last year.

She has also claimed the pressure of the divorce proceedings have driven her close to suicide and dismissed her legal team.

McCartney for his part has been more circumspect, admitting that the divorce has been painful but he said he has tried to remain dignified and been helped by music and the couple's young daughter.