‘Illiterate’ tycoon’s children in fight over his £100m will
A RAGS-to-riches tycoon who cut his son out of his £100million will didn’t know what he was doing because he could “barely read”, a court has heard.
Property king Kevin Reeves became a self-made multi-millionaire after leaving school at 12.
His death in 2019, at the age of 71, sparked a war between his children after he changed his will to almost entirely cut out his two sons and leave everything to his two daughters.
Former hairdresser Louise, 35, was to get 80 per cent, Lisa Murray – who only met her dad in her 20s – was to get 20 per cent, while Bill would get £200,000-worth of possessions.
Elder son Mark, who was estranged from Kevin, got nothing.
But the will before the one written in 2014 split the fortune equally between Louise, Lisa and Bill – with smaller sums going to Mark’s two children.
Fighting for his original £26.7million share at the High Court, Bill, 47, insisted that his dad cannot have fully understood what was in the later will – and he was under Louise’s influence when he wrote it.
As the highly charged three-week battle drew to a close, Bill’s barrister Constance McDonnell QC told the court that Kevin would not have been able to read the document properly.
His literacy was so poor that he had spelt Lisa’s name incorrectly in three different ways on one sheet of paper, she said.
“The evidence documentary relating to
Kevin’s literacy all points in the direction of him barely having been able to read,” she told Mr Justice Michael Green, who has reserved his judgment. Earlier, the court heard that Kevin built his fortune in property in the Southampton area and, at the time of his death, had a vast business and investment empire.
Bill, backed by Mark’s 24-year-old son Ryan, claims the will is invalid due to “want of knowledge and approval” and the “undue influence” of Louise.
Earlier, Louise – who took on her dad’s business – had denied he could not read.
She said: “He could not have achieved what he had achieved with not being able to read a document.”