A London High Court judge has thrown out a contested will that stripped a charity shop volunteer of his share in a £600,000 family estate following bogus claims that he tried to murder his brother.
Held under the sway of dementia and domestic isolation, Peggy Dalton had rewritten her estate plans inside her Surrey home in November 2020. The revised document cut out her son Richard Dalton—a retired electrician—entirely. Instead, it handed almost the entire £600,000 estate to her other surviving son, Robert Dalton, and his wife, Carly. In a sweeping ruling, Master Katherine McQuail declared the 2020 document void, citing lack of testamentary capacity, lack of approval, improper execution, and undue influence.
Richard stood vindicated.
The bitter feud erupted after Robert and Carly moved into Peggy's Surrey residence in early 2020, securing power of attorney over her finances. Relatives and social workers soon found themselves locked out. Family members could no longer administer her medication, while outside healthcare staff were barred from visiting the deteriorating matriarch. During this period of tightening seclusion, Peggy told will-drafters that Richard had stolen £100,000 from her and faced attempted murder charges for attacking Robert.
The claims were completely baseless.
Court records confirmed Richard had never faced an attempted murder charge. He had sustained a prior conviction for dangerous driving following an altercation involving Robert and their mother's car—an incident Peggy never witnessed. Master McQuail challenged how an elderly woman wrestling with progressive cognitive decline could have formed such extreme, ungrounded convictions without external coaching.
Peggy’s mental health had unraveled swiftly throughout late 2020. Hospitalised less than four weeks after signing the disputed document, she was moved into a residential care facility where clinicians diagnosed advanced dementia. Under legal standards, valid testamentary capacity mandates that a person understand the scope of their property and comprehend the claims of those who would naturally expect to inherit. Peggy possessed neither.
Before the dispute fractured the family, Peggy had endured catastrophic personal loss—nursing her husband William through severe brain trauma until his 2008 death, then burying her daughter Christine in 2015 and son David in 2018. Her original 2018 will split the £600,000 estate equitably between Richard, Robert, and her grandson Vincent. The fraudulent 2020 rewrite had replaced that division with £10,000 tokens for six grandchildren, siphoning the vast remainder directly to Robert and Carly.
The High Court's order formally reinstates the 2018 will, clearing the path for probate executors to distribute the £600,000 estate equally among Richard, Robert, and Vincent.