A bizarre High Court case has erupted over the £800,000 fortune of 92-year-old Carry Keats, who partially tore up her will on her deathbed.
The legal dispute pits Keats’ five distant cousins against her younger sister, Josephine Oakley.
Under a Victorian law passed in 1837 any person can legally revoke a will they have made by tearing it up, so long as the act is carried out within certain guidelines.
The family drama has unfolded in London’s High Court, with both sides presenting conflicting accounts of Keats’ final wishes and mental capacity.
A bizarre High Court case has erupted over the £800,000 fortune of 92-year-old Carry Keats, who partially tore up her will on her deathbed (stock image)Getty
Keats, described as “stubborn and old-fashioned”, owned and ran a successful caravan site. Her fortune was primarily tied up in her home and land in the Wiltshire village of Nomansland.
In 2020, Keats made a will splitting her estate between five distant cousins, including David Crew, a close friend of hers and her late husband for decades.
However, towards the end of her life, Keats is understood to have grown closer to her younger sister Josephine, with whom she had a “love-hate relationship”.
Oakley claims she took her sister roast dinners every Sunday and visited her in hospital almost daily during her final illness.
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The row unfolded in January 2022, when Keats summoned her long-time lawyer, Hafwen Webb, to her hospital bed in Salisbury.
In front of her solicitor, Keats began tearing her will. However, she was only able to rip it three-quarters of the way through.
The cousins argue that Keats was too weak to complete the act herself, and that the solicitor finished tearing the document at her request.
The cousins claim that Keats lacked the mental capacity to authorise the solicitor to complete the tearing.
Simon Sinnatt, representing the cousins, argued that for the will’s destruction to be valid, Keats had to either fully destroy it herself or properly authorise her solicitor to do so.
The cousins contend that Keats lacked the mental capacity to legally approve the solicitor’s completion of the tearing, as she was medicated and in pain.
However, Webb testified that Keats was lucid and understood the consequences of her actions.
Webb said: “I told her repeatedly that if she died intestate Jo would inherit. She said their father would be pleased.”
Oakley’s barrister, Christopher Jones, argued that the evidence clearly points to a valid revocation of the 2020 will.
The court heard Crew allege that Keats disapproved of her sister due to past indiscretions.
Under a Victorian law passed in 1837 any person can legally revoke a will they have made by tearing it up, so long as the act is carried out within certain guidelines (stock image)
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Crew testified: “Carry didn’t like her sister because of all the various things that had happened in the past – not just lending money, but infidelity in her marriage.”
He claimed Keats was “disgusted” by an alleged incident where her sister’s husband “had come home early and found her in bed with another man.”
Oakley vehemently denies these allegations of infidelity.
The cousins also argue that Keats fell out with them after they suggested placing her in a care home following a fall.
Deputy Master John Linwood has reserved his ruling and will deliver it at a later date.