A MILLIONAIRE car boot king’s cleaner has won a battle against his “golden boy” son for his £43million fortune.
Richard Scott made his money running the UK’s second biggest boot fair from his “vast” Cheshire farm, where ITV‘s ‘Car Boot Challenge’ was filmed.
The dad-of-19 wrote son Adam out of his will before his death in 2018 aged 81 – leaving his fortune to wife Jennifer.
Scott had married Jennifer – his former cleaner and 28 years his junior – in 2016 following the death of his first wife.
The 60-year-old was left in control of his estate and farmland, which she said could now be worth up to £43million.
But Adam, who is two years older than his stepmum, launched a legal battle claiming his dad was not in his right mind when he signed the will.
Delivering his judgment today, Mr Justice Richards dismissed Adam’s claim – leaving widow Jennifer in control of Scott’s massive multimillion-pound estate.
He said he accepted the tycoon had been suffering from a degenerative brain condition when he wrote Adam out of the wills in 2016.
But the judge found the decision had been “the product of a personality type that disliked being thwarted” rather than “one that involved his normal human instincts and affections being perverted by his mental disease”.
He also dismissed Adam’s claims that Scott had promised to leave him all his land.
The court heard “mercurial character” Richard was “a ruthless, single-minded and highly successful businessman who built up a valuable property empire” before switching to running giant and lucrative car boot sales.
He fathered 19 children – six with his first wife, plus six illegitimate children during that relationship, followed by another seven with Jennifer, who was working as his cleaner when the pair first got together in 1994.
Richard and Jennifer eventually married in 2016 just two years before his death.
Adam tried to stop the wedding going ahead, claiming his dad didn’t have the mental capacity to marry.
Just months after the wedding, Scott signed the two wills which disinherited Adam and left Jennifer in control of his wealth, as executor and a major beneficiary.
Jennifer’s two sons, Gordon and William Redgrave-Scott, and Adam’s sister Rebecca Horley were also made beneficiaries of the last wills.
Adam claimed he sacrificed his life to work with Scott side-by-side from the age of nine, and was promised it would all be his one day.
His lawyer told the court Scott had been diagnosed with brain disease fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) in 2011 and had been hardly able to communicate by the time the papers were signed.
Constance McDonnell KC added: “Adam submits that there can be no presumptions in favour of his father’s knowledge and approval of the September and December 2016 wills. By this time, his dementia had left him incapable of speaking more than an occasional word.
“He sought to communicate in writing and by gestures, but could write no more than a few words or numbers. Jennifer acted as Richard’s ‘translator,’ purporting to explain what he intended to others.”
But lawyers for Jennifer claimed Scott knew exactly what he was doing when he disinherited his first born and former “favourite” child.
They argued the relationship between the pair had “completely broke down” when he tried to get Richard sectioned.
The court was also told Adam told social services that Scott was “beating Jennifer and the children”, which led to an investigation.
Giving judgment and addressing Adam’s claim that the wills were invalid for lack of mental capacity, Mr Justice Richards said that his decision to disinherit his son had been prompted by his disgruntlement at his former “golden boy” rather than his dementia.
“Richard’s FTD increased his pre-existing tendency towards poor impulse control,” he said.
“I have, therefore, considered whether Richard’s decisions in the disputed wills were…an absurd action occasioned by his FTD.
“However, I do not consider that his decisions were the product of his FTD. Rather, they were the product of a personality type that disliked being thwarted and engaged in careful measurement of how much his family members ‘deserved’ by reference to whether they had sought to thwart him or not.
“That personality type was not always conducive to kind decisions, as I have concluded throughout this judgment. However, it was not an aspect of Richard’s FTD or any other disorder of mind.”
Adam also brought an alternative claim under the law of proprietary estoppel – a legal remedy that can be used when a landowner has promised property will be transferred to someone else at a later date, only to later go back on the promise.
This was also dismissed by the judge following the case.
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