An unfaithful husband’s three children have won a £460,000 inheritance battle against their half-siblings after only discovering they existed months before he died.
Michael Gymer died in December 2020, aged 83, six months after his 81-year-old wife Julie died. The couple left behind three children – Shelley, 62, Gregory, 64, and Lee, 54.
But before his death, the trio discovered through a relative that their father had been leading a secret double life for ‘decades’.
Behind their mother’s back, Mr Gymer had been in relationship with Beverley Madden and together they had two children, Joseph, 29, and Charlotte, 32.
Neither Mr or Mrs Gymer made a will and when he died, his estate of £461,752 stood to be split equally among his children, leaving all five siblings with a share of £92,350.
But Shelley, Gregory and Lee argued that was unfair because their father had inherited their mother’s share when she died, meaning her money was effectively being shared out amongst her cheating husband’s love children along with her own.
Their half-siblings attempted to claim that the late Mrs Gymer knew about the affair and if she had been ‘bothered’ about them inheriting the money she would have changed her will – but the judge rejected this.
The discovery of Michael Gymer’s relationship with Beverley Madden – mother of secret half-siblings Joseph, 29, and Charlotte, 32 – (both pictured) set the scene for a bitter court fight as the two families grappled over the father’s £461,000 estate
Beverley Madden is pictured outside Central London County Court
Gregory and Lee sued and have won a ruling at Central London County Court cutting out about £170,000 from their father’s estate that would have been shared with their half-siblings and handing it to them.
Mr Gymer’s affair was ‘conducted secretly over decades from at least 1992,’ explained the judge, Recorder Jonathan Cohen KC.
All five children were ‘innocent victims’ of a ‘mess’ created by their father and, although Charlotte and Joseph had known about his other family, none of their half-siblings had any inkling they existed until after Mrs Gymer’s death.
The judge said: ‘They are all perfectly innocent of their father’s deceptive conduct, which has created the unfortunate mess which is now before us and the court is trying to resolve.’
He awarded Gregory and Lee a third each – worth about £85,000 – of their mother’s share of the couple’s joint wealth.
He made the move after ruling under the 1975 Inheritance Act that the brothers have pressing financial needs which justified them getting a third each of their mother’s share of the family fortune – while their sister Shelley Frost’s needs are not so acute.
The court heard that the late Mrs Gymer worked as a shop assistant to help feed and raise her family, while Mr Gymer worked as a market porter.
Through their lifetime of labour they owned a mortgage-free £450,000 family house in Home Close, Carshalton, explained the brothers’ barrister, Rory Brown.
But hidden away from his everyday life as a hardworking father, Mr Gymer was having an affair and creating a second secret family.
The judge told the court: ‘Charlotte and Joseph were aware from a young age that Mr Gymer had another family and they were also aware that the other family didn’t know about them.
Charlotte (pictured) and Joseph Gymer were aware from a young age that their father had another family who didn’t know about them, the court heard
‘They were under strict instructions from Michael as to how to communicate with him – or not to communicate with him – so as not to give away the secret of their existence.’
From the witness box, Joseph Gymer told the judge that the first time he and his sister met Shelley and her siblings was at their father’s funeral when Shelley ‘came beetling over and started complaining about how betrayed she felt’.
But Charlotte and Joseph’s mother Beverley claimed that from around 1998, Mrs Gymer had known of her husband’s long-term affair and her children argued that if the wife had wanted to disinherit them she could have chosen to do so by making a will.
In the witness box, Joseph backed up his mother’s account, claiming Mrs Gymer wouldn’t have minded the children of her husband’s long running affair inheriting part of her estate.
The three siblings’ barrister put to him: ‘are you seriously suggesting that Julie wasn’t bothered about whether her children took all her estate, or whether the children of this adulterous relationship also took something from it?’
But he replied: ‘I don’t know what Julie would have wanted, but she didn’t make a will so I think that’s what she wanted.
‘I don’t think she would have been bothered.’
Mr Brown, however, rejected suggestions that Mrs Gymer knew of or tolerated her husband’s other woman and her children, also urging: ‘Charlotte and Joseph did not know Julie Gymer – nor even meet or speak to her.
‘The claimants dispute that Julie knew of the affair and of Joseph and Charlotte’s existence, and regard the suggestion that their mother would have been content for the children of Michael and his mistress to benefit from her estate as arrant nonsense.
‘They did not have any real – let alone reasonable expectation – of inheriting from her.
Joseph claimed his half-sister Shelly seemed ‘rude and hostile’ despite him having shouldered their dead father’s coffin during the funeral
‘They were not even treated as her children, nor did they have any kind of relationship with her whatsoever – nor she any responsibility to them.
‘There is no principled reason why they should also inherit from the claimants’ mother’s estate. They have no moral claim upon Julie Gymer’s assets.’
Mr Brown also told the court 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.
From the witness box, Shelley said she had no clue about her father’s affair until after her mother’s death and denied suggestions by her half-siblings’ barrister that he sometimes ‘called her Charlotte instead of Shelley’.
The first she knew about her father’s double life was after her mother’s funeral when her brother, Lee, told her that a cousin had revealed the existence of the secret family.
And the first time she met her half-siblings was at her father’s funeral, during which Joseph claimed Shelly seemed ‘rude and hostile’ despite him having shouldered their dead father’s coffin during the service, suggested barrister Estelle Lear, representing Charlotte and Joseph.
‘You came over to complain how betrayed you felt,’ she continued.
‘I would have said that I felt betrayed, yes of course I did,’ said Shelley, although denying claims by Joseph that she had known about the other family.
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, said to be worth £255,000, with the final third being divided equally between all five children.
All five will continue to share their father’s portion of the family wealth.
Ruling against Charlotte and Joseph getting an equal share of the total, the judge said it was unlikely that Julie would have carried on keeping her husband’s relationship a secret from her children had she discovered it – especially given her ‘open’ character and ‘inability to keep a secret’.
‘I find that I have not been satisfied by the evidence that Julie actually knew of the relationship with Beverley or of the existence of Charlotte and Joseph,’ said the judge.
The judge’s decision means that Lee and Gregory will now walk away with about £143,000 each from their parents’ estate – while the other three siblings will end up with only £58,000 each.
An order setting out the terms of the judgment and the precise amount each of the five will get will be finalised at a later date.