The son of Sir Stirling Moss alleged that his mother had “squandered and stolen” millions of pounds that was earmarked for him by his father during a bitter inheritance row, court documents reveal.
The Formula 1 racing star’s son and daughter are locked in a legal battle over the remnants of the £22 million left after his death, aged 90, in 2020.
At the centre of the dispute is the estate of Sir Stirling Moss’s third wife, Susie, who inherited the vast majority of his fortune, causing a rupture that has divided the family.
The intricacies of the financial rift have been revealed in legal documents filed at the High Court, detailing accusations of missing heirlooms and attempts to “poison” Lady Moss’s thinking.
Pitched against each other are the driver’s son, Stirling Elliot Moss — who goes by the name Elliot — whose mother is Lady Moss, and his half-sister, Allison Bradley, from Moss’s second marriage to Elaine Barbarino, an American public-relations executive.
Both children accompanied their father alongside Lady Moss during his investiture at Buckingham Palace in 2000, marking his career as one of Britain’s greatest racing drivers.
Elliot Stirling, Allison Bradley, Sir Stirling Moss and Lady Moss at Buckingham Palace in 2020
PA
But legal documents outline how relations soured after Sir Stirling Moss’s death. In a series of extraordinary allegations Elliot Moss, accused his mother of going against his father’s wishes by not granting the majority of the estate to him.
When Lady Moss died in 2023 leaving behind £27.8 million, her estate was placed in a discretionary trust with Bradley and a family friend, Richard Frankel, as the trustees.
Elliot Moss, 45, a chef who trained with Michel Roux Jr at Le Gavroche, told the High Court that his half-sister, who was brought up by her mother, had a “strained” relationship with his mother.
He claimed that Bradley saw her father and Lady Moss only once or twice a year before 2017. In the three years before Sir Stirling Moss’s death, during which time he was suffering from Alzheimer’s, he said she visited the couple less than a dozen times. By contrast, he said that he and his wife Helen were “extremely close” to his parents.
But in a legal reply filed last week, Bradley described some of her sibling’s claims as “embarrassing” and rejected his categorisation of the relationship with her father and stepmother. The 59-year-old said that her father “always encouraged” her to “regard herself as a member of the Moss family”.
Bradley’s lawyer, Constance McDonnell KC, wrote that she had “many happy memories” with the family, from being walked down the aisle at her 1996 wedding, to holidays with Lady Moss, cruises, ski trips and trips to the south of France.
DAVE M. BENETT/GETTY IMAGES
The submission pointed to her attendance at Christmas drinks and dinner with her father and stepmother alongside Elliot Moss, and described how the racing star and his wife were always present to mark her own children’s milestones.
Bradley’s relationship with Lady Moss was “loving and dependable” for most of her adult life, the 38-page submission added. It described a 2020 call in which Lady Moss said she regarded herself as having “two children”.
Bradley said that her half-brother had a “turbulent and at times difficult relationship with both of his parents during his adult life”. Relations with his mother worsened after their father’s death, she added, claiming that he often talked about his mother in “a hostile and derogatory manner”.
She added that her father and stepmother had provided Elliot Moss “ample financial support”, from paying for his wedding and honeymoon, a £50,000 gift in 2020 and the use of a luxury flat in Maida Vale, west London.
The legal case was initiated by Bradley to assert a will left by Lady Moss in 2022. But in a defence and counterclaim, Elliot Moss alleged that his mother did not have the capacity to execute the will.
Sir Stirling Moss during the Grand Prix at Nurburgring in August 1961
BERNARD CAHIER/GETTY IMAGES
He said that his mother’s drinking worsened after his father’s death, when she typically consumed one to two bottles of wine and half a bottle of gin a day. He also said that her longstanding depression escalated and that she developed a “complex bereavement disorder” that often saw her cradling an urn that contained her late husband’s ashes.
Bradley said that while her stepmother’s health was affected by years of excessive drinking, she did retain mental capacity.
In his legal submission, Elliot Moss’s lawyer Tracey Angus KC wrote that the 2022 will was invalid as it was obtained under “undue influence” by Frankel, a classic car enthusiast. Elliot Moss claimed that Frankel, who is not a party to the claim, often supplied his mother with alcohol after Sir Stirling Moss’s death, and had turned his mother against him.
One of the documents describes a November 2021 email written by Elliot Moss to Frankel, who was assisting Lady Moss with her affairs.
He wrote: “Mum has robbed me of an incredible amount of things that my father had meant for me to have — literally millions squandered and stolen, as well as hugely valuable emotional items that have caused, and continue to cause, me enormous distress.”
Although Lady Moss’s final will did not determine how much Elliot Moss would receive, he said that the trustees could exclude him “entirely”.
He has asked the High Court to recognise what he said was his mother’s last true will, made in 2002, that would see him receive 75 per cent of the estate and his half-sister 25 per cent.
A hearing date has not been set at the High Court.