THE DAUGHTER of a multi-millionaire entrepreneur who founded the home of showjumping has been jailed over a £500,000 tax fraud.

Theresa Bunn, the third child of the late Douglas Bunn, lied to HM Revenue and Customs “purely to avoid tax” on her aunt’s estate after she left her more than £1.5million.

Ms Bunn, 56, claimed she was left around £285,000 by Diana Vivien Pares-Wilson. She hid the excess money from the authorities and her family in a friend’s bank account.

Her father, who died in 2009 aged 81, was the founder of the Hickstead showjumping course which seats more than 5,000 spectators and hosts the FEI Nations Cup, the world cup of showjumping.

The scale of Ms

Bunn’s

fraud began to unravel when HMRC officers investigated her finances and discovered she was supporting a friend in Wales financially. It enabled her to pretend the value of her aunt’s estate was below the threshold for inheritance tax – £325,000 – when she died in Worthing, West Sussex, in February 2010.

Bunn has been jailed for two years and eight months after admitting she had avoided the 40 per cent tax on the amount she was left in excess of the threshold, avoiding a bill of around £500,000.

Although Bunn was living in Kilgarvan in County Kerry, Ireland, it is understood she shared a home with her maternal aunt for several years in Henfield, West Sussex, and was the executor of the will.

Miss Pares-Wilson entrusted her niece with distributing her £1.5million estate between her siblings Lavinia and Claudia, and other family members.

Stuart Taylor, assistant

director

Douglas Bunn and the showjumper’s daughter Theresa as a child

for HMRC, said Ms Bunn had “the benefit of large amounts of cash” and “lied purely to avoid tax”. He added: “The vast majority of us pay what is due, when it is due.”

Speaking on behalf of the family, Bunn’s half-brother, Edward, who co-runs Hickstead, said: “We are very sorry to see our sister in this position. This is purely a personal matter. She has no connection with any of the Bunn family businesses and never has had.”

Douglas Bunn was educated at Cambridge and made his millions building the Bunn Leisure holiday village in Selsey, West Sussex, turning a 20-acre patch of marsh land into the largest holiday village in Europe. The business helped the father-of-ten generate the cash to follow his love for horses and develop the All England Jumping Course at Hickstead, which he set up in 1959. Widely regarded as the home of British showjumping, the course now also hosts dressage and polo events and since 1971 has hosted the nations cup.

A top-level showjumper himself, Mr Bunn was determined to make his course the best in Europe, building a terrifying 10ft 6in drop known as “Derby Bank” to supercede one in Hamburg.

After his death, his son Edward and daughter Lizzie began running Hickstead and their brother John took charge of the holiday village.

Around the same time, Theresa – the third child of Mr Bunn’s marriage to first wife, Rosemary ParesWilson – was living with her mother’s sister six miles away from Hickstead.

On April 3 last year, she was charged with cheating the public revenue contrary to common law. She was sentenced at Chichester Crown Court, West Sussex, after admitting her fraud. HMRC said she also confessed to failing to declare substantial gifts from her aunt while she was alive.

Neighbours who knew Bunn and her aunt said that living together was of mutual benefit to the pair, with Bunn having somewhere to live while caring for her ageing aunt. They were described as “eccentric”, with one recalling Miss Pares-Wilson hollering for her prescription at the chemist from her open car window. Another described Ms Bunn as “vulnerable”, but said they were both likeable.

Inheritance tax rules state money or possessions left behind after death are taxed at 40 per cent if they are worth more than £325,000. That can be reduced to 36 per cent if 10 per cent or more of the estate is left to charity. Married couples and civil partners can leave assets to each other tax-free.