Dying banker’s carer ‘guided his hand’ to sign over half of his £1m will
A CARER ‘guided the hand’ of a millionaire on his deathbed to change his will and sign over almost half of his £1million estate to her family. But Donna Henderson has ended up with nothing – apart from an £85,000 legal bill – after a judge ruled that the altered will of retired London banker Marcel Chu is invalid.
The High Court heard that he first made a will in 2008 dividing his estate between his brothers Allen and Stanley, sister Eva Young and a close friend.
But suffering from a rare autoimmune condition that caused memory loss and confusion, he was unable to live without assistance in his last year at his home in East London and Henderson began caring for him. ‘She took control of his life and excluded his siblings from further involvement with him,’ Judge Nigel Price said.
On May 9, 2014 – two days before his death aged 73 – he executed the new will, leaving 40 per cent of his estate to Henderson and her family as he lay in hospital with ‘multiple morbidities’ including internal bleeding, septicaemia and diabetes.
The court heard he may also have been ‘delirious’ due to a high temperature. ‘Marcel almost certainly lacked the capacity to execute [the will],’ said Richard Dew, for the former Barclays banker’s siblings.
Henderson had organised the drawing up of the new will just over a week before and admitted that she had held the pensioner’s hand while he signed it.
Insisting it reflected his true wishes, she said she had merely ‘guided his hand’ and ‘assisted him because of his infirmity’.
But evidence from a handwriting expert supported the siblings’ case that her ‘assistance’ with the new will went too far.
‘There is a distinct possibility that she wrote that signature whilst holding Marcel’s hand,’ said Mr Dew. ‘That wouldn’t be his signature – that would be her signature.’
Judge Price said: ‘It may be that it is permissible for a testator to be helped in signing a document, but the scope of such assistance must be limited.
‘There is a distinction between leading and steadying the hand. The distinction is to be drawn when assistance goes so far as to lead in the formation of the letters.
‘The medical evidence is compelling as to the state [Mr Chu] was in. On May 9, 2014, he could not have been in any state to appreciate what he was doing in relation to the execution of this document.’
The court heard last Thursday that in the weeks before his death, Henderson and two friends who acted as witnesses met a will writer and the new document was drawn up.
She told the will writer she was a friend of Mr Chu and did not reveal that she was in fact his carer. Mrs Henderson, a distant relation of Mr Chu’s by marriage, ‘paid for these services’, Judge Price said.
He told the court her friends had given evidence ‘that although Marcel was frail, he had signed the will’.
But ruling that the 2008 document was the valid version, he added: ‘Although one might have expected a small or even significant legacy to be left to a carer, the wholesale change in the will in favour of Mrs Henderson is surprising.
‘Marcel’s close family appear to have been kept out of the picture in relation to the writing of the new will and the time of the final illness.
‘Emails show the seriousness of the situation was being played down. One infers that was to keep them out and prevent them from taking any steps in relation to the new will.
‘I have no hesitation in reaching the conclusion that the siblings are entitled to a decree in solemn form in favour of the 2008 will.’
He told Mr Dew: ‘You are entitled to your costs but I’m not sure you are ever going to retrieve them. She is a carer on £60 a day.
‘Mrs Henderson has caused all this and walked away from it.’
He ordered Henderson to meet the siblings’ legal costs, which Mr Dew said came to £85,000.
She did not attend the hearing and was not represented.
‘Could not appreciate what he was doing’