Five granddaughters who were each left £50 from their ‘disappointed’ grandad in his will are now facing a hefty legal bill. Frederick Ward Snr, who died in 2020, all but cut out his dead son Fred Jnr’s five adult children from his £500,000 will because he was ‘upset’ they didn’t visit him often during his later years. The five granddaughters – Carol Gowing, Angela St Marseille, Amanda Higginbotham, Christine Ward and Janet Pett – were each handed £50 in an envelope, and decided to sue, claiming they deserved their late dad’s one-third share of the will.
But their case was thrown out of the High Court after judge Master James Brightwell said it was ‘entirely rational’ for the ‘disappointed’ grandad to cut his grandchildren out, due to their ‘very limited contact’ with him. Now, following a new hearing, the five grandchildren have been left with a £220,000-plus bill to cover their aunt and uncle’s costs of defending the claim against them, as well as their own lawyers’ bills. The five had accused their Uncle Terry and Aunt Susan of having ‘unduly influenced’ Frederick Snr into changing his will – something the High Court said there was no evidence of.
Lawyers for the five granddaughters argued that they should not pay all the costs of the case, accusing their uncle of ‘provocative’ behaviour, and asking for some of the bills of the fight to come out of their grandad’s estate. But the judge said the cause of the bitter court batt.
