Daughter of inventor who designed parts of Hawker Harrier jump jet wins £2.5m inheritance battle

The daughter of an aeronautical inventor who used secret spy cameras to trap her cousin persuading her mother to leave her a large chunk of her fortune has won a battle over the £2.5m inheritance.

Candice Harrison, whose father Arthur designed parts of the Hawker Harrier jump jet, is suing her builder cousin Jonathan Greenwood after he inherited £400,000 tax-free from her mother with dementia’s 2017 will.

The 63-year-old claimed her cousin had turned her mother Julie Harrison “against her” after she became increasingly frail due to dementia, before persuading her to change her will in her favour.

Chief Judge Katherine McQuail ruled that Mr Greenwood, 61, had carried out an “undue influence campaign” against Ms Harrison following a trial in London’s High Court.

The judge said Ms Harrison’s secret cameras caught Mr Greenwood red-handed as he tried to get his elderly mother to leave him more money, adding that he played on her “false” fears that her daughter would put her up in a low-level care home. .

Assistant Principal McQuail added: “From the transcript… I infer that Mr Greenwood used and amplified Julie’s concern about her ability to stay at home to try to persuade her to leave him money in her will and, if necessary, , from your trust.’ she said.

“At the time she made her will in 2017, the decedent harbored false beliefs that her daughter was taking her money without her authorization and was planning to sell her home and place her in a low-level care home.”

The judge annulled the 2017 will, which left the £400,000 bequest to Greenwood, and instead reinstated an earlier 2012 will under which Harrison will inherit almost all of his mother’s fortune.

As the losing party, Mr. Greenwood was also ordered to bear legal fees of £120,000 for the trial.

After the hearing, Ms Harrison said the case “had ripped out her heart”.

He called his younger cousin “nasty” and said the dispute “had ruined me financially and destroyed an emotional part of me.”

His father, Arthur, was a successful inventor and businessman who helped create the parachute component for the ejector seat of the RAF’s Hawker Harrier jump jet.

He died in 2010, leaving all his wealth, including his share of the £1.2m family home in Surrey, to his wife Julie.

The mother, a passionate animal lover who had a special fondness for foxes, died in 2020 aged 89, leaving an estate valued at more than £2.5m.

In her 2017 will, Julie gave cash to various pet charities, but left the only child, Mrs Harrison, in the family home, Appleyard Cottage, in Camberley, along with substantial assets.

But under the same will, his cousin, Mr. Greenwood, received £400,000 tax free.

The trial previously heard how Ms Harrison sued her cousin, alleging her mother was influenced to leave nearly a fifth of her fortune to Mr Greenwood after she became frail and he had “gambled and exploited her deteriorating condition.” “.

Owen Curry, representing Harrison, told the court that despite being wealthy after inheriting her husband’s money, the mother was vulnerable and had started developing dementia in 2013.

She told the judge that due to her dementia, she “could not have handled large sums of money” and that in 2018 a family trust was paying her some of her funds.

When he made his last will in 2017, he was too mentally fragile to understand what he was signing, Curry said.

He also told the court that the new will came about due to the “undue influence” of Mr. Greenwood, who he claimed poisoned Julie’s mind against her daughter.

The lawyer continued: “Candice’s case is that from the end of 2016, if not earlier, Mr Greenwood began playing games with and exploiting Ms Harrison’s increasingly deteriorating ability to wrongly persuade her that her daughter was treating her unfairly, she was only interested in money, it was unfairly preventing her from running her own affairs and, for example, she was considering selling her house to put Mrs. Harrison in a nursing home.

“Her goal in all of this, Candice says, was to get a major legacy out of her.

“She had a fixed idea that she would be forced to leave her home, something she did not want to happen.

“That was encouraged by Jonathan Greenwood, who said that Candice would have control of the house and would sell it.”

Ms Harrison blamed her cousin for her late mother having formed ‘fixed’ but false ideas about her ‘having designs in her house and preventing her from feeding the foxes’, Curry said.

He told the judge: “There is clear evidence of a campaign over several years in which Mr Greenwood secretly took advantage of his aunt’s concerns to execute documents whose main aim was to ensure he obtained £400,000 tax-free on her death. “.

Ms Harrison asked the judge to revoke the 2017 will, meaning her mother’s fortune would go to her under the terms of a previous will, except for various bequests totaling £32,000, mainly intended for charities.

He argued that he had “positive evidence” of undue influence by his cousin in the making of the will, part of which came from footage he captured after installing a video camera at his mother’s home to monitor visitors.

Mr Green said: “Mr Greenwood repeatedly encouraged Ms Harrison to believe that Candice was acting wrong and would not care for her in the future.

In fact, Candice did not commit any crime.

He added that she tried her best to manage his financial affairs and ended up taking her mother home for the last six months after the reconciliation.

In handing down her sentence, the judge said Ms Harrison became suspicious of her cousin after discovering that her mother had given him cash gifts totaling more than £25,000, with the last such payment coming in 2016.

Assistant Principal McQuail added: ‘Candice said she was very concerned about these payments and the circumstances in which they were made, so she confronted her cousin about it.

‘That incident led Candice to take much tighter control of her mother’s finances.

“Candice came to the conclusion that her mother’s fear of being placed in a home was something her cousin was taking advantage of and using to turn her mother against her.”

The judge ruled that Ms Harrison had “raised real doubts” about her mother’s mental capacity when she made her last will and that she was “undoubtedly vulnerable” at the time.

He also highlighted evidence of undercover footage, which captured Mr Greenwood discussing the possibility of his aunt making another will in his favour.

The judge continued: ‘I accept that he embarked on an influence campaign, which amounted to undue influence.

“Candice accepts that she and her mother had occasional difficulties and arguments, but not more than usual in a loving mother-daughter relationship.”

Mr. Greenwood did not attend the trial or testify in defense of the lawsuit against him, although he did go to court for final judgment.

He asked Assistant Principal McQuail to withdraw it as part of the case, describing himself as a ‘bystander’, but the judge refused, leaving him with the heavy bill of £120,000 for legal costs.