Stranger THAN fiction
Author loses six-f igure case as his allegations of murder and skulduggery are thrown out of court
AS a writer, he specialises in racy historical novels full of sex, intrigue and scandal.
But even the plots of his books pale in comparison to the story Hunter Steele told when he went to court to demand a share of the fortune of his partner’s mother.
The 67-year-old Scots author wove a lurid tale of murder and skulduggery to claim he had been unfairly denied more than £100,000.
But his hopes of a windfall were dashed when a court ruled the claims were an elaborate work of fiction. Not only will he not receive any money, he now faces large legal costs after a sheriff rejected his claims as ‘bizarre and fanciful’.
Mr Steele, who lives in Errol in Perthshire with partner Lesley Wood, owns a publishing company
‘Incredibly frustrating’
and has written a number of novels. One, Chasing The Gilded Shadow, is a lewd account of life in the court of James IV.
The court case centred on the will of his partner’s mother, Karel Kirby-Turner, who died in 2009 at the age of 84.
Months before her death, Mrs Kirby-Turner revised her will to leave 90 per cent of her estate to her other daughter, Rosemary Wild. The remaining 10 per cent was left to Miss Wood.
Mrs Wild, 64, subsequently offered to give 27.5 per cent to her sister, which was accepted.
But Mr Steele lodged a claim at Perth Sheriff Court, saying Miss Wood, 60, had not received a fair share of the will and that he had personally lost out as a result.
He sued Mrs Wild for £105,536 in a ‘deprived inheritance’ claim – and also insisted she had killed her mother.
Mrs Kirby-Turner died at home in Saffron Walden, Essex. A post-mortem examination revealed higher than expected levels of prescription medication in her system and a coroner subsequently returned an open verdict on the cause of death.
But in court, Mr Steele claimed Mrs Wild had ‘stockpiled’ drugs and ‘orchestrated the death’ due to her ‘lust to get her hands on Karel Kirby-Turner’s money’.
He also included a £35,000 claim for defamation against Mrs Wild, saying she considered his novels ‘distasteful pornography’ with ‘too much sex’; and a £45,000 claim for the loss of someone to whom he was close.
But his claims, along with the accusation of unlawful killing, were dismissed last week in a 53-page written judgment that concluded: ‘What is said is sheer conjecture. It is difficult to discern any relevance in the averments other than to blacken the character of the defender.’
Sheriff Michael Wood said: ‘The pursuer, repeatedly and with what can only be described as ferocious persistence, accuses the defender of having murdered her mother or otherwise contrived to secure her death.
‘The “deprived inheritance” claim is but fanciful supposition.’
Last night, Mrs Wild, an artist and naturalist from Essex, said: ‘This has been incredibly frustrating. People like Hunter should not be allowed to get as far as he got. The sheriff really seems to have seen through the mess and cut through to the fact there was no substance to it.’