Dramatic moment 92-year-old ripped up will to spark feud over £800k fortune - as lawyer speaks out

A lawyer has spoken of the moment her dying 92-year-old client dramatically ripped up her last will and testament, causing a family feud over her £800k .

Carry Keats was on her deathbed in Salisbury when she called in her long-standing solicitor Hafwen Webb and told her she had changed her mind about who she wanted to inherit her worldly goods. The case is being heard at the as they elderly woman's five distant cousins lost out, with the money automatically falling to her younger sister, Josephine, who she once had a love-hate relationship with.

In the witness box, law firm partner Ms Webb said the elderly woman was a "well-known and long-standing client," adding: "Her character hadn't changed. She was still the same old Carry. She knew who I was and why I was there. I told her repeatedly that if she died intestate Jo would inherit. She said their father would be pleased. I told her she could tear up the will to revoke it. She wasn't happy that the will was in place. She gave me instructions and from that I took it that she had capacity."

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The court heard Mrs Keats had previously gone to the law firm in November 2021, saying that she wanted to cut the cousins out of her will after falling out with them, the solicitor said. "I felt confident and comfortable after she ripped up the will that she was at peace. She looked at peace and I felt that was what she wanted, especially with what she had told me in November the year before. Carry knew why I was there. She was giving me the correct responses and it wasn't any different to what she had been saying in November."

The solicitor accepted that Mrs Keats had "lost capacity" by the end of the visit after a pain killing injection took effect, but told the judge: "I knew I had that window. I was confident she knew what she was doing and she wanted to tear up the will." Mrs Keats then ripped the will to three quarters, before asking Ms Webb to complete the task.

The 92-year-old once owned and ran a successful caravan site, leaving behind £800,000, mainly tied up in her home and land at Whitehorns, in the Wiltshire village of Nomansland. She had made a will which split almost everything she owned between five distant cousins of hers, one of whom - David Crew, her cousin once removed - had been close friends with her and her late husband for decades.

The other four were David's sister Angela Crew, plus cousins twice removed Kevin, Jason and Leon Whitehorn. However, towards the end of her life, she grew closer to her younger sister Josephine - nine years her junior.

Josephine Oakley's barrister, Christopher Jones, told the judge: "Josephine and Carry were sisters who enjoyed a normal relationship between siblings where there is a considerable age gap: it was not without argument, but (they) always cared for each other." Mrs Keats was someone who was "stubborn and had very old-fashioned views" and "she liked to reward people who were in her favour," he said, whilst the judge heard that another witness had described the sisters' "love-hate relationship".

"By 2020, Josephine was undertaking Carry's grocery , she took her roast dinners each Sunday and for the last 18 months of her life took her to hospital and GP appointments. When Carry was admitted to hospital, Josephine visited each day, save for 7-17 January 2022 when she herself was in hospital."

Simon Sinnatt, for the cousins, told the judge that, under the Wills Act 1837, for the destruction of the will to be valid Mrs Keats had to either intentionally fully destroy the will herself or properly authorise her solicitor to do so.

"Did the deceased sufficiently destroy the will? Did the deceased authorise Hafwen Webb to complete the destruction or acquiesce in the same? Did the deceased have the requisite intention to destroy the will? If the will was revoked, did the deceased have the mental capacity to do so?" he said.

The judge has now reserved his ruling on the case to be given at a later date.