A former bank manager branded a “shopaholic” and cut out of her mum’s £325,000 will has won a bitter court battle with her younger brother for half the money.
Jean Clitheroe left daughter Susan Bond nothing when she died, aged 76, in 2017, having declared Susan was a “shopaholic” and would “fritter it away.”
Jean blasted her daughter’s alleged “spendthrift ways” and left nearly all her wealth to her estate agent son John.
But Susan, 52, of St Osyth, Essex, began a court fight with her brother, seeking to overturn her mum’s 2010 and 2013 wills, and claiming Jean was too unhinged at the time to draft them.
At the High Court, in London, she insisted Jean, from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, was in no condition to make a rational decision.
Her barrister, Edward Hicks, argued Jean had been suffering an acute grief reaction since the death of her beloved eldest daughter, Debra, who died of cancer, aged 46, in 2009.
Mr Hicks said Jean was so devastated by Debra’s death, she stopped acting rationally and formed a deluded view Susan had authorised too much pain relief for her sister on her death bed.
Judge Linwood ruled out both of Jean’s wills and concluded there was no evidence Susan was any more lavish than her sister or mum, and found Jean irrationally turned against her.
He said: “I find Sue was in no way responsible for the estrangement. It was clear Jean had taken against her, but irrationally maintained it was Sue who cut her out.”
The OAP had “poisoned” her own mind with her “fixed delusions”.
