Parkinson’s disabled daughter faces eviction
High Court is told family of late Tory peer had stopped maintenance payments to child from Keays affair
CECIL PARKINSON’S disabled daughter is in danger of eviction from her home after the politician’s family stopped maintenance payments two years ago, the High Court has heard.
Flora Keays, 34, who has severe mental and physical disabilities, is living in “serious financial hardship”, the court was told yesterday.
Lord Parkinson had a protracted legal battle with his former mistress, Sara Keays, and was eventually ordered to pay £20,000 a year in maintenance. However, the payments stopped two months after the Conservative peer’s death at the age of 84 in January 2016.
The former Tory party chairman had left his entire estate, valued at £1,141,310, to his wife, Lady Anne Parkinson, and their three daughters Mary, Emma and Joanna. His daughter from his affair with Ms Keays was not a beneficiary of the 2009 will.
Flora Keays was supposed to benefit from a £350,000 life insurance policy.
Yesterday, the will executors – Lord Parkinson’s daughter Emma and a solicitor Christopher Lewis – lost a legal battle to block the appointment of a lawyer, nominated by Sara Keays, as Flora Keays’s “litigation friend”. The role had previously been taken by Sara Keays, but the executors had objected.
Sara Keays began legal action after the maintenance payments ceased. The High Court heard that Ms Keays had devoted her life to her daughter’s care, welfare and education.
In March 2016, lawyers made one last payment of £5,000 to Ms Keays and no further payment has since been made, apart from arrears paid later on an ad hoc basis, said Master Clark, the judge. She said: “Ms Keays’s evidence is that this has placed her, and indirectly the claimant (Flora), in severe financial difficulties; resulting in her being unable to meet the mortgage payments due in respect of the house where she and the claimant live, or to meet other essential and pressing needs.”
The judge said that by April 2017, Ms Keays was facing possession proceedings but was able to pay mortgage arrears with a fee from a press interview.
“Ms Keays’s evidence – which is uncontradicted – is that this has caused her embarrassment and difficulty with the mortgagee,” the judge said.
“Ms Keays does express in her evidence anger and frustration that the support provided by the deceased to the claimant ... has been abruptly removed.”
The judge said there was no evidence Ms Keays would spend provision from Lord Parkinson’s estate other than for Flora’s benefit.
She added that Ms Keays should be entitled to choose as litigation friend the solicitor she preferred and an order of appointment would be made.