Sister ‘bullied dad into leaving her 80% of his £100m fortune’
A BROTHER is accusing his sister of bullying their late property mogul father into leaving her most of his £100million estate.
Louise Reeves, 35, allegedly ‘coerced’ property developer Kevin Reeves into giving her 80 per cent of his fortune.
Her father, who was brought up in a convent orphanage and left school at the age of 12, died two years ago aged 71.
Now one of his sons, Bill Reeves, is locked in a High Court row with his ‘materialistic’ sister. Miss Reeves insists her father left her the majority of the estate because he saw her as the heiress to his property empire, which is based in Southampton. Louise and Bill have two other siblings – estranged older brother Mark, and half-sister Lisa Murray, who did not know her father until she was in her 20s.
In a will in 2012, the father planned to give each of Mark’s two children 10 per cent of his fortune, with the remaining 80 per cent split equally between Bill, Louise and Lisa. But in 2014, he signed a new will, leaving Bill about £200,000 worth of personal effects. The rest was split between his daughters, with Louise getting 80 per cent and Lisa 20 per cent.
Bill, 47, claims his ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ sister – who ‘likes money’ and is drawn to ‘flash things’ – was behind his father’s ‘inexplicable’ decision to almost completely cut him out.
He says the 2012 will, under which the three siblings would each have a share worth as much as £26.6million, should be ruled their father’s final valid will. Constance McDonnell QC, representing Bill,
‘Drawn to flash things’
claimed Louise was obsessed with money, saying that she had once dated a ‘flash’ multimillionaire who had been accused of money laundering.
She added: ‘Part of our case is you are materialistic. You like money, you like spending money, you like having money, and you like flash things.’
But Louise denied the accusation and added that no one could have coerced her ‘strongwilled’ father into doing something he did not want to do.
Her barrister, Thomas Dumont QC, told the court that there was no evidence to prove that Louise had pressed her father into changing his will, adding: ‘Kevin was nobody’s fool.’
The trial continues.