BILLIONAIRE Richard Pratt's long-time mistress Shari-Lea Hitchcock was granted one stolen hour to say goodbye to her lover in the days before his death.

It was a compassionate gesture by Jeanne Pratt - the cardboard king's wife of 50 years - to the woman who scandalised the family nine years ago when Mr Pratt's long-running affair with the sometime model made newspaper headlines around the nation.

And it was the first and only time Ms Hitchcock, who has an 11-year-old daughter with the billionaire, had been welcomed into the Pratt family's Kew neo-gothic mansion, Raheen, The Daily Telegraph reports.

For one frozen hour on Friday, Mr Pratt's family made way for Ms Hitchcock: this hour belonged to her.

Late last week, the businessman's son and heir Anthony contacted Ms Hitchcock and offered to book her a flight to Melbourne, collect her from the airport and take her to Raheen to farewell Mr Pratt.

According to well-placed sources, Ms Hitchcock was told the condition of her taking the timeslot was that she never speak of the meeting again. .........

The couple's daughter, Paula, who is the image of her father and named in memory of Mr Pratt's mother, was not at her father's bedside during the meeting.

She was away at a week-long camp with fellow students from her private Sydney school Kambala, returning only on Sunday