A three-year legal battle over the multimillion-pound estate of a “car boot king” who fathered 19 children and married his cleaner has gone before a High Court judge.
Richard Scott died aged 81 in 2018 after making a fortune running Britain’s second-biggest boot fair, which was featured in Car Boot Challenge on ITV, from his Cheshire farm.
Scott was described at a hearing in London as “mercurial” and a “ruthless, single-minded and highly successful businessman who built up a valuable property empire” before switching to running large and lucrative car boot sales.
Richard Scott remarried in 2016
MACCLESFIELD EXPRESS
He was said to have fathered six children with his first wife, seven with his second and six outside of his marriages.
Adam, 62, the millionaire’s eldest and “favourite” son, has claimed that he sacrificed his life to work on the farm from the age of nine and that his father had promised he would inherit the business.
However, after the death of Adam’s mother, his father remarried in 2016, setting up home with his former cleaner, Jennifer, who was 28 years his junior.
The stepmother, who is younger than Adam, is accused of wresting control of her husband’s property and having his son disinherited.
Jennifer Scott says that Adam was disinherited from his father’s will after their relationship “completely broke down”
CHAMPION NEWS SERVICE
Adam challenged her in the High Court in 2022 and a full trial of the dispute has come before Mr Justice Richards, who heard the son claim that his father was not mentally capable when he signed his two final wills.
According to Adam, his father told him that he would take over the farm after his death, and that he had committed to “a life of hard and unrelenting physical work” on the back of those promises.
However, lawyers for his stepmother, 60, who is executor of the estate, have claimed that the millionaire was fully aware of his actions when he disinherited Adam after their relationship “completely broke down”.
The lawyers told the court that Adam had no claim on the estate on the basis of the alleged promises because he had already been handed £10 million in property before his father’s death.
The judge heard that the businessman and his second wife started a relationship in 1994 but did not marry until 2016, two years before his death. Adam had attempted to prevent the wedding, claiming that his father did not have the mental capacity to wed.
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Alex Troup KC, representing the wife, said that it was common ground between the parties that Adam “attended the registry office and alleged that Richard lacked capacity to marry”. As a result, the businessman was interviewed by four registrars and a lawyer from the local council, “all of whom were satisfied that he did have capacity to marry”, said Troup.
By the time of his death from cancer, Scott owned large amounts of land around Chelford in Cheshire. Troup said it had been valued for probate at about £7 million, but the wife had claimed that it was worth £43 million, an estimate based on offers for potential development potential.
Months after his marriage, Scott signed two wills that disinherited Adam and left his wife in control of his wealth, as executor and as a main beneficiary.
Jennifer’s sons, Gordon and William Redgrave-Scott, and Adam’s sister Rebecca Horley were also made beneficiaries of the last wills.
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Constance McDonnell KC, representing Adam, said that his father was diagnosed with a form of dementia in 2011 and had hardly been able to communicate by the time the last wills were signed.
She told the court that at that stage the businessman attempted to communicate “in writing and by gestures, but could write no more than a few words or numbers”. She added that Jennifer acted as his “translator, purporting to explain what he intended to others”.
The hearing continues.