Filipina widow offered £10k and one-way trip home by stepchildren
A FILIPINA bride who was offered ‘£10,000 and a one-way ticket home’ by her stepchildren after her husband died has lost a fight for a share of his fortune.
Rosita Hendry wed Michael Hendry, who was 20 years her senior, after they met in the Philippines in 2001.
She flew to the UK to marry him in 2003 and the couple lived together in Surrey. But amid accusations of boozing and adultery, the marriage collapsed and they were in the process of divorcing when Mr Hendry died, aged 70, in 2017.
By then he had cut her out of his will, leaving everything, including his home near Hampton Court Palace in south-west London, to two of his children from a previous relationship. Mrs Hendry, 52, was left with just £63 a month from her husband’s pension plan but when she went to her stepchildren to ask for a share of her late husband’s estate, she was offered £10,000 in cash and a one-way flight home.
She rejected that and further more generous offers, demanding a £110,000 half-share of his £220,000 estate. But the widow has ended up with nothing after losing a court fight with her dead husband’s children.
London’s High Court heard that Mr Hendry already had three children – Michael Hendry junior, Dorothy Pertiwi and their older sister, Melanie, who lives in the United States – when he met his future wife in the Philippines. Together with Michael junior, the couple lived in Mr Hendry’s home in East Molesey, Surrey, and were regulars in their local pub.
When they married, the couple signed a pre-nuptial agreement, under which Mrs Hendry would get only a flight home and £10,000 if they split.
After Mr Hendry’s death, Michael junior and Miss Pertiwi offered his widow the deal agreed in the pre-nup. Judge Karen Shuman said Mrs Hendry claimed the marriage broke up when Mr Hendry began drinking heavily and became violent, obliging her to move in with a friend.
But Miss Pertiwi claimed that Mrs Hendry had had an affair and the revelation had driven her father to drink.
The judge did not make any findings to any of the allegations.
Mrs Hendry only lodged a claim for ‘reasonable financial provision’ in April last year, which the judge ruled was too late. The money will now be split equally between Mr Hendry’s two younger children, Michael, 21, and Dorothy, 30.
The judge noted that Mrs Hendry could attempt to sue her solicitors for missing the time limit to file her claim.