TWO siblings have won a £460,000 inheritance row over their dad’s secret love children after they discovered he had lived a double life for decades.
Michael Gymer died in December 2020 aged 83, just six months after his 81-year-old wife Julie passed, with whom he had fathered three children.
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However, just prior to his death, the trio of siblings – Shelley, 62, Gregory, 64, and Lee, 54 – discovered a shocking truth to their dad’s life.
A relative revealed to them that dad Michael had been leading a secret and sordid double life for “decades”, behind their mother’s back.
He had been in a relationship with a woman named Beverley Madden, and fathered two children with her – Joseph, 29, and Charlotte, 32.
The children only met properly for the first time at Michael’s funeral where Joseph helped carry the coffin.
Neither Michael nor July had made a will, meaning that their entire estate, worth £461,752, was split equally among his five biological children when he died.
However, it was revealed today that two of the legitimate children sued and won a ruling at Central London County Court, clawing back a larger sum of their dad’s estate.
Having split the inheritance equally, each initially gained £92,350, including the illegitimate children.
Following the ruling, the pair clawed back around £170,000 from Michael’s estate, taking it away from their half-siblings.
Gregory and Lee argued that since their mum’s share had been inherited by Michael, her money was effectively being shared out amongst her cheating husband’s love children, along with her own.
The judge rejected an argument from half-siblings Joseph and Charlotte that Julie knew about the affair and if she had been “bothered” about this, she would have changed her will.
This means Lee and Gregory will end up with around £143,000 each from the inheritance, leaving the other three, including legitimate child Shelley, with just £58,000 each.
An order setting out the terms of the judgment and the precise final amount each of the five will get will be finalised at a later date.
Recorder Jonathan Cohen KC explained how Michael’s affair was “conducted secretly over decades from at least 1992”.
He said all five children were “innocent victims” of a “mess” created by their dad’s “deceptive conduct”.
The judge made the ruling, giving Gregory and Lee a third each of their mum’s share of the couple’s joint well, under the 1975 Inheritance Act.
It was made as the brothers proved to have pressing financial needs which justified them getting a third each – around £85,000 – of their mum’s share of the family fortune.
‘BETRAYED’
Since Shelley’s needs were not the same, she was not awarded any of Julie’s inheritance as part of the ruling.
The court heard how mother Julie had worked as a shop assistant to help feed and raise her family while Michael had worked as a market porter.
Together, they eventually owned a mortgage-free £450,000 family home in Home Close, Carshalton, explained the brothers’ barrister, Rory Brown.
However, hidden away from his everyday life, Michael was having an affair and creating a second secret family.
Charlotte and Joseph were aware from a young age that their dad Michael had another family and that the other family did not know about them, the judge told the court.
He had also given strict instructions to his two illegitimate children on how to communicate with him, as to “not give away their secret”.
Joseph told the judge the first time he and his sister met their half-siblings was at Michael’s funeral when Shelley “came beetling over and started complaining about how betrayed she felt”.
Secret lover Beverley claimed that Julie had known of her husband’s long-term affair since around 1998, with Joseph adding that Julie would have acted to disinherit them if she wanted to.
The three siblings’ barrister questioned the likelihood of this having happened, rejecting suggestions Julie knew of the illegitimate children.
He also told the court how the three siblings helped care for their parents in their declining years and claimed the five-way division of spoils failed to make “reasonable provision” for them in line with their rights under the 1975 Inheritance Act.
After a three-day trial, Recorder Cohen KC ruled that brothers Gregory and Lee should get a third each of Julie’s share of the couple’s wealth.
This was said to be worth £255,000, with the final third being divided equally between all five children, who will also share their father’s portion of the family wealth.
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