Real Housewife hopeful lunched with Eastern Suburbs school mums prior to Bellevue Hill arrest

A Sydney social elite was spotted at a high-spirited mums’ lunch hours before she was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer and refusing a blood-alcohol test.

Vanessa Jacobs Fennell was sighted at lunch with a group of Eastern Suburbs mums from elite boys school Scots College in the hours before she was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer and refusing a blood-alcohol test.

According to eyewitnesses Jacobs Fennell and a group of high-spirited Scots school mums enjoyed lunch at Double Bay restaurant Tanuki on Friday afternoon before members of the party headed across the road to martini bar Bobbie’s to partake in the 2.30pm 4pm $10 cocktail “golden hour”.

An Instagram story, since expired, is said to have caught the women unwinding at week’s end.

Vanessa Jacobs Fennell was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer and refusing a blood-alcohol test after a lunch with friends.

Eyewitnesses reported her enjoying cocktails at a Double Bay restaurant and martini bar shortly before the incident (pictured). Picture: 9News

Sometime later, police allege Jacobs Fennell, 54, climbed behind the wheel of her Black Range Rover Sport and began driving erratically through the narrow backstreets of prestigious Bellevue Hill where it’s alleged she crashed into a number of parked cars including a Tesla before police arrived.

The ex-wife of billionaire James Packer Jodhi Meares made headlines in 2014 when she similarly collided with three cars before rolling her Range Rover while driving more than three times over the limit. Meares was in nearby O’Sullivan Road, some six blocks away from where Jacobs Fennell came undone.

Police arrested Jacobs Fennell just prior to 7pm after she tested positive to a roadside breath test but it’s alleged she subsequently refused police’s request to accompany officers to a nearby station for further breath-analysis and assaulted an officer during the encounter.

She drove her Black Range Rover Sport erratically in Bellevue Hill, colliding with parked cars, including a Tesla. Picture: 9 News

The South African-raised mother-of-two was subsequently taken to Waverley police station and detained overnight.

Jacobs Fennell later told media she was having a panic attack when she crashed her Range Rover in Riddell St.

The tyres on Jacobs Fennell’s Range Rover were reportedly shredded as a result of her “doing laps” of the suburb.

News.com.au can reveal the South African-born socialite’s ex-husband Tom Fennell, a Sydney banker, lives streets away from where Jacobs Fennell collided with the Tesla in Bulkara Road, Bellevue Hill.

Socialite Vanessa Jacobs Fennell (in red) with socialites Heidi Onisforou, Jola O’Neill and Terry Biviano at a lunch for The Royal Women’s Hospital Randwick in 2019. Picture: Facebook

The couple divorced around 2020 with Fennell later moving on with prominent Sydney party girl Annabelle Price, and ex-wife of investment banker Freddie Blencke.

Tom Fennell became entangled in the aftermath of the ugly breakdown of the Blencke/Price marriage after it emerged 30-year-old Price had moved into Fennell’s Rose Bay apartment with her and Blencke’s young children in 2022.

Blencke and Price’s marriage breakdown made headlines in 2021 following reports the couple had a heated row at The Children’s Hospital Westmead.

Sydney socialite Jacobs Fennell (right) with Georgie Curran at the same event. Jacobs Fennell has a history of personal struggles, including the loss of two children and a recent end to a relationship with a businessman. Picture: Facebook

Sources say Fennell and Price have recently ended their relationship following, say sources, a disagreement over a marriage prenup.

Jacobs Fennell managed to hold onto the keys of the $12 million-plus family home in Tamarama after the couple’s marriage ended – this despite having found herself in a messy dispute with a McGrath real estate agent in 2021 over what Fennell claimed were his aggressive pursuit of Jacobs Fennell.

The one-time Macquarie Group national account manager has worked diligently to reinvent herself as a single woman including throwing her support behind children’s hospitals The Royal in Randwick and the Sydney Children’s Hospital.

Her attachment to these causes can be linked to her own tragic personal losses with friends saying she has buried two children.

A new love affair with a Melbourne businessman also ended recently.

Originally published as Real Housewife hopeful lunched with Eastern Suburbs school mums prior to Bellevue Hill arrest