Flora and I face eviction because Cecil Parkinson didn’t leave us a penny
Sara Keays & disabled daughter Flora ‘cut off’ by former minister
THE former mistress of ex-Tory minister Cecil Parkinson fears she and their disabled daughter could lose their home after maintenance payments stopped when he died.
Sara Keays claims Flora, who needs round-the-clock care, was not included in his will – and the quarterly £5,000 payments they had previously received from him have been stopped.
Sara, 69, has now gone into arrears on her mortgage and claims that she and Flora are being “starved into submission” from beyond the grave.
She is taking legal action against the millionaire’s estate to get cash for Flora after he died aged 84 in January last year.
She said: “I’m terrified and at my wits’ end. We could be homeless at any time.
“It is unbelievable that today, so long after her father’s death, Flora has yet to receive a penny. After all this time, what has happened is the final insult.
“Cecil was a very rich man, who lived well. Flora is his daughter and deserves better than this.”
Lord Parkinson never met Flora, now 33. It was, Sara has said, the “one promise to me” that he kept.
SCANDAL
The ex-Tory chairman was forced to resign from Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet in 1983 during the scandal of his 12-year affair with Sara, his former secretary.
The mum says Lord Parkinson tried to persuade her to abort their baby and that when she refused he got an injunction forbidding Flora from speaking publicly or doing anything that might identify her until she was 18.
That meant she could never join in class photographs or take part in school activities while growing up.
She suffered epileptic fits as a small child and at the age of four had surgery to remove a brain tumour.
It resulted in her right frontal lobe being removed, leaving her with serious social and learning difficulties. She also has Asperger syndrome.
Flora, who now takes art classes, said: “I feel that my father has really lost out.
“If I hadn’t had a disability, maybe he would have wanted to be involved in my life. I would have liked him to have seen that I could do art work.”
Lord Parkinson’s £1.4million estate went to his wife Ann and their three daughters Mary, Emma and Joanna.
Four months after his death, Sara received a letter from his lawyers saying the maintenance payments had stopped. Flora added: “A person of my mother’s age should be taking it easy and not have all these burdens and worries.”
Speaking for the first time since he died, Sara said she was surprised he had left just £1.4million in his will.
“He had obviously made gifts to his offspring during his lifetime to avoid tax – which, of course, he is entitled to do,” she said. “The fact that he didn’t do the same for Flora is frightful.”
She believed Mr Parkinson had offshore funds in the Bahamas as well as
If I hadn’t had a disability, maybe he’d have wanted to be involved in my life
FLORA KEAYS SARA’S DAUGHTER BY HER EX-BOSS CECIL PARKINSON
owning houses in Cornwall, London and Hertfordshire.
He also benefited from various directorships, a ministerial pension and his House of Lords allowance.
Sara told the Mail on Sunday: “Cecil spent much of his time setting up offshore funds in the Bahamas and elsewhere. He used to keep all relevant papers in the House of Commons.
“Despite being a rich man when Flora was born, he initially paid just £3,000 a year maintenance. Shortly after Flora’s operation, this rose to £10,000 a year. Her needs were so extensive, I appealed in the courts for more and in 1988 maintenance was set at £5,000 a quarter. His maintenance for her – I never asked for anything for myself – was never increased in line with inflation and remained the same until his death 23 years later.”
“I was stunned when I discovered he had excluded Flora [ from his will].
“Because of her disabilities, she is unable to care for herself and it was his legal duty to provide for her. I have not stopped worrying since.”
Sara says she has since learned a life insurance policy was set up for Flora, worth about £350,000, but claims she has yet to receive any money.
She added: “His lawyers admit they are holding the proceeds.”
And she said that at current low rates, the interest on the cash held in trust will not come close to the previous maintenance payments.
Sara, who has diabetes and problems with her eyesight, says she is unable to work as Flora requires 24-hour care at home in Gloucester.
She is having to draft all her own legal documents in her fight with Lord Parkinson’s estate as she cannot afford to pay for a lawyer.
“Getting any information out of them is like pulling teeth,” she said.
“It comes out little by little and anything I need to deal with is sent very close to the deadline for me to respond. I feel it is an attempt to starve me into submission.”
Parkinson’s daughter Emma would not comment on the claims. The rest of the family and executors of the will could not be reached last night.
From beyond the grave, he continues to torment his former mistress and the disabled child he disowned. The threat of eviction hanging over his ex-secretary Sara Keays and Flora, the daughter fathered by the married Cabinet minister, is to his eternal shame.
His failure to provide for them properly in his will underlines how so many of Thatcher’s Tories were a callous bunch who preached responsibility in public while privately behaving like scoundrels. History will remember Parkinson as an unfaithful cad.