Cousin sued over mum’s £2.5m will

AN inventor’s daughter is suing her cousin, claiming he poisoned her mum’s mind to get a slice of the £2.5million family fortune.

Candice Harrison, 63, is the daughter of aeronautical inventor Arthur Harrison, who designed parts of the Hawker Harrier jump jet. He died in 2010, leaving his wealth, including the £1.2million family home in Surrey, to his wife Julie – Candice’s mum.

Julie died in 2020 aged 89, leaving an estate valued at over £2.5million. In her will, she handed cash to pet charities, but left her only child Candice the family home in Camberley, plus substantial assets. However, under the same 2017 will, her builder cousin Jonathan Greenwood, 61, got £400,000.

Candice is suing her cousin over the legacy, claiming her mum was pressured into leaving almost a fifth of her fortune to Mr Greenwood after he “exploited” her dementia.

The daughter’s barrister, Owen Curry, told London’s High Court that by 2018 some of her funds were being paid to her by a family trust. When Julie made her last will in 2017, she was too mentally frail to understand what she was signing, the barrister said.

Mr Curry said: “Mr Greenwood began exploiting Mrs Harrison’s deteriorating capacity to persuade her wrongly that her daughter was treating her unfairly, was only interested in money, was unfairly preventing her from managing her own affairs and was contemplating selling her house to put Mrs Harrison in a care home.”

It is claimed “positive evidence” was captured on a camera set up to monitor strangers.

The judge, Deputy Master Katherine McQuail, is being asked to overturn the 2017 will. As such the fortune would all go to Candice under the terms of a previous will, save for charitable legacies totalling £32,000.

Candice took her mum into her home for the last six months of her life, Mr Curry said.

After the hearing she said the case has cost her more than £300,000 so far. She added: “It ruined me financially and destroyed some emotional part of me.”

Mr Curry said the claim has gone unopposed by Mr Greenwood. The judge will rule on the case at a later date.