Paternity ruling came too late for woman

Housekeeper's illegitimate child dies before inheritance decision

A woman has won a court battle that proves her lifelong suspicions that she was the illegitimate daughter of a man her housekeeper mother once worked for.

The “unparalleled” paternity declaration means that Colleen Tarr could have tried to claim a stake in her half-brother’s inheritance after he died without a will in 2020.

However, the 85-year-old, who never met her father and endured years of shame from being born out of wedlock, passed away in April.

The paternity declaration was made in August last year but was released publicly by the Family Court this week.

It explains how another of Tarr’s siblings objected to the declaration being made on the grounds that her father, Daniel Rogers, died in 1972 and it was simply too late to establish any familial connection.

According to the judgment, Rogers’ first wife bore him seven children and died while giving birth. Two of their children are still alive.

When Rogers remarried in 1938 he also employed a housekeeper called Elizabeth Clarkin, who gave birth to a daughter she named Colleen Tarr.

Tarr was born in 1936 and on her

18th birthday, her aunt told her who her real father was. However, during his lifetime she had no relationship with him and never discussed her parentage with her mother.

As an adult, she knew where Rogers lived after she found his name in the telephone book, but had never had the courage to connect with him, nor anyone else in the family.

Around 2021 a friend helped Tarr conduct a do-it-yourself genealogy test which can be uploaded to Ancestry.com which matches the results to other potential family members.

After uploading her results she was invited to a family gathering in

2021 by Mick Rogers, the youngest surviving son of Daniel Rogers and his first wife.

Later, another of her halfbrothers, Peter Rogers, visited her and told her that their brother Frank had passed away without a will in

2020.

Under the Status of Children Act if the executor of a person’s will is aware of any potential claimants who have not established paternity then they must tell them they have the right to seek to legitimise that relationship through the courts.

Both Peter and Mick provided DNA samples which indicated Tarr was

245,000 times more likely to be their sibling than not.

However, Frank’s sister, Frances Cotter, opposed Tarr being named as a half-sibling but died while court proceedings were still under way.

Cotter’s lawyer, Neville Woods, argued on his client’s behalf that Rogers had been dead more than 52 years and called the delay “unparalleled”.

Woods also submitted that there was no evidence presented to establish the alleged sexual relationship between Tarr’s mother and Daniel Rogers as well as comparisons of their physical appearance nor any DNA from the man himself.

Woods said there was no actual relationship, in the form of love, affection, acknowledgement, maintenance or any social or moral connection whatsoever and Tarr confirmed that herself in court.

However, Judge Belinda Pidwell said that Woods’ interpretation of the law was “draconian” and that the Status of Children Act was designed to eliminate social stigma.

“If a child seeking to establish paternity had to establish a connection or bond with the putative father to succeed, irrespective of a biological link, then fathers could defend such applications by simply walking away from their offspring,” she said.

“Declarations of paternity are emotional and pierce the very core of a person’s identity, their sense of belonging, their whakapapa.”

Judge Pidwell said that the case had been triggered in part by the executor’s obligations under the act as well as Tarr’s need to establish her identity and whakapapa in her twilight years.

In evidence, Tarr spoke of how she felt living her life with the social stigma of being born out of wedlock, which in the 1940s was considered scandalous.

“. . . I had a desire all my life. What would you have done? Your pride and rejection. You’re frightened of both of them. Which is proven now by rejection, what’s happening now; rejection,” Tarr told the court.

Judge Bidwell noted that the Status of Children Act was not passed into law until 1969, when Tarr was 34. Until that law was passed she had no legal redress as a child born out of wedlock and paternity testing didn’t become available until the 1980s.

“How can an adult be criticised for inaction when there is no legal recourse for half of her lifetime?” Judge Bidwell said in her ruling.

She said the only reasonable interpretation from the DNA evidence, as well as birth certificates provided by her half-brothers, was that Tarr was Daniel Rogers’ natural daughter and made a paternity order confirming it.

The Family Court could not rule on whether the paternity enhanced her inheritance claim on Frank Rogers’ estate and Tarr has since died.