Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Earl’s rebel daughter loses £1.3m will fight
AN earl’s daughter lost a claim to his £1.3million fortune – after a judge said it was her fault she lived on benefits in a council house.
Lady Tara Wellesley, 56, railed against her family’s blue-blooded values and did not see her dad, the seventh Earl Cowley, for 26 years before his death aged 81 in 2016.
But after he left her £20,000, Lady Tara sued for a bigger payout so she could buy her house and begin a career in the art world.
Dismissing her claim, Judge John Linwood said it was her own fault that she became estranged, citing her “drink-and-drug” lifestyle, which her dad loathed.
While Lady Tara, of Gospel Oak, North London, had tried to reconcile, the split had been “mutual”, he told the High Court.
In an outburst in her 20s – recalled by step-sister Heidi Iratcabal and accepted by the judge – Lady Tara said she “hated” the family’s “superior attitudes”.
He said Tara’s bohemian lifestyle, plus “her disruptive influence and behaviour” led to her estrangement from her father.
“He would not accept her rejection of his … expectations in complying with what he expected in the best interests … of the family.
“I find that the estrangement was due to Tara’s conduct alone.”
She denied taking drugs, saying she only went to “the odd nightclub” and insisted she had not been unruly as a child.
Fighting her claim, her brother, the eighth earl, Graham Wellesley, said Lady Tara was a “wild child”.
The American-born seventh earl served in the US Army, before a career in finance. He married four times, and Lady Tara had stormy relationships with her stepmothers, the court heard earlier.
Judge Linwood said Lady Tara could live within her means and, despite her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, “there seems to be no reason why Tara could not try to find work”.