£800k row over will of ‘Sid Vicious’ judge
Lord’s son and stepdaughters in court fight
HIS sharp intellect – and even sharper tongue – earned law lord Sydney Templeman the nickname Sid Vicious.
now, fittingly, his son and stepdaughters are embroiled in a vicious row over the late judge’s £800,000 will in the High Court – where the late peer used to sit.
The twice-widowed judge was one of three who controversially banned former MI5 officer Peter Wright’s Spycatcher memoirs in 1988. He died aged 94 in 2014.
In his final will, from 2008, he left his £580,000 home near exeter, Devon, to his stepdaughters from his second marriage.
But lord Templeman’s barrister son from his first marriage, Michael Templeman, 68, has claimed in the High Court that the dementia he suffered from in later life makes the will invalid.
He insists it should be overturned and sisters Sarah edworthy, 66, and Jane Goss-Custard, 70, should get no more than the £18,000 which they had each been due to inherit under the previous will.
Mr Templeman, who inherited only around £120,000 under the 2008 will, said his father and second wife Sheila had initally agreed in 2004 what to do with their estates and neither of those wills left the house to the sisters. Mr Templeman said in making the new will in 2008 there was ‘the strongest possible evidence that he had forgotten’ what was agreed.
To demonstrate his father’s diminished mental capacity, he told the court that he had to email Mrs Goss- Custard, who lived close to lord Templeman, to ask her to leave his father written instructions on using the TV remote. The stepdaughters insist lord Templeman knew what he was doing and they are entitled to the proceeds of the sale of the house, which until their mother’s death in 2008 had belonged to her.
They also say lord Templeman ‘loved them and looked on them as daughters’ and claim the retired judge was no more than ‘slightly forgetful’ by the time the will was made. Mrs edworthy, from newport, south Wales, said she could ‘understand somebody of 80-odd not being able to use a Sky control’ and added she too sometimes had problems with it.
The court heard lord Templeman married his first wife in 1946 and had two sons, Michael, and the rev Peter Templeman, who does not contest the will.
The peer retired from the House of lords judicial committee in 1994 and married second wife Sheila edworthy in 1996. The house called Mellowstone was built by Sheila and her first husband in 1974. lord Templeman inherited the property after her death. His own house in Woking, Surrey, was sold for £815,000 in 1997 and the proceeds split between him and his two sons.
The sisters’ barrister Alexander learmonth pointed to evidence from a psychiatrist who said lord Templeman was ‘very likely’ to have had capacity to make the will. The hearing continues.