Traveller household feud over Winter Wonderland funfair agency: Sons accuse carnival king father of assault and threatening to burn down Hyde Park carousel in battle over £10m empire

A traveller family feud over a £10million empire has hit the High Court – with two sons accusing their father of assault as well as threatening to burn down a Winter Wonderland carousel in Hyde Park.

One of 65-year-old Joseph Manning Snr’s sons says his father broke his nose with a headbutt and poached customers while also threatening to destroy a carousel used for Hyde Park’s annual Winter Wonderland festival in London. 

The allegations have been made at London‘s High Court, as Clayton Manning and Joseph Manning Jnr told of living in fear of their father.

Mr Manning Snr is a veteran showman whose ancestor laid the foundations for the family empire after running a fairground peepshow in the 1850s.

But disputes erupted between the father and his two sons over running the family business that includes flagship attraction Old MacDonald’s Farm and Fun Park in Brentwood, Essex.

Legal documents lodged with the High Court accuse parents Joseph Manning Snr and his wife Sindy Manning, 68, of breaching promises and ‘failing to act in good faith’ by letting their personal interests conflict with their duty to their eldest son.

The Manning group of companies – said by Joseph Snr to be worth about £10million – also operates temporary funfair events at major cities throughout England.

And it provides rides, attractions and catering services for the Winter Wonderland event in Hyde Park and the Winterland event at Dartford’s Bluewater shopping centre.

Joseph Jnr, 43, and 33-year-old Clayton are suing their father over claims he broke pledges they would inherit the lucrative family concerns.

The dispute has now come before a judge last week as the family’s two firms – Mannings Organisation Ltd and Mannings Amusements Ltd, both now run by the brothers – sought an injunction barring Joseph Snr from harassing company staff or interfering with daily operations.

Richard Power, barrister for the two businesses, said the order was necessary in light of past incidents in which Joseph Snr had allegedly behaved violently or disrupted the operations run by Mannings Organisation and Mannings Amusements.

Joseph Snr has been ousted from being a director of the two companies in September 2024.

The barrister highlighted incidents he claimed justified enjoining Mr Manning Snr, including an alleged flare-up in July 2024 in which he is said to have assaulted both his sons – breaking Clayton’s nose with a headbutt and splitting Joseph’s brow open.

On top of that, the elderly showman stands accused of threatening to destroy a carousel used at Winter Wonderland and ‘breaking into the site occupied by Mannings Amusements at the Winterland event at Bluewater, trespassing and setting up catering stalls without any licence or agreement to do so’.

Sketching out the siblings’ case on their father’s ‘rogue’ antics, the barrister explained: ‘Joseph Manning Snr has been engaged in a persistent and deliberate course of unreasonable and oppressive conduct, targeted at the claimant companies and Joseph Jr and Clayton Manning.’

He said the father’s action was ‘calculated to and has caused alarm, fear or distress and has already had – and will continue to have, if not restrained – an ongoing serious impact on the claimants’ business’.

The barrister alleged that in October 2023 Joseph Snr ‘threatened to set fire to some key equipment that was due to be transported to the Winter Wonderland Event’.

The father then a year later threatened to ‘destroy the carousel used for Winter Wonderland’, Mr Power said.

There was also evidence he had attempted to prevent the family business getting the Winter Wonderland contract, the barrister added, with Royal Parks receiving an ‘anonymous letter urging them not to award the Winter Wonderland contract’ to Mannings Amusements last November.

The alleged harassment peaked on October 16 last year when Joseph Snr ‘unlawfully forced entry into the Dartford Winterland event, removing several locks and fence panels, and set up food stalls on the site’, Mr Power told London’s High Court.

The barrister said: ‘He was asked to leave by the head of security for the Winterland event, but refused to do so.

‘The manager of the Bluewater site attended and told Mr Clayton Manning that issues of this kind, if unresolved, could lead to the Winterland Event being cancelled and jeopardise Manning Amusement’s contract in future years.’ The stalls were removed the following day.

Mr Manning Snr denies all claims of violence and harassment, insisting that in fact his sons were the ‘aggressors’ in the July confrontation.

He also says he only attended the October 2025 Winter Wonderland event because he was advised to do so by the Showmen’s Guild ‘in order to protect his rights under the guild rules’.

Addressing the alleged headbutt attack, his barrister Tom Grant told Deputy Judge Andrew Kinnier: ‘In truth, his sons – strong and young – were the aggressors in the incident.

‘Clayton, during this incident, strangled his father – then suffering from cancer.’

Mr Grant also suggested the brothers’ anti-harassment injunction application was ‘motivated by a desire to put my client in prison’.

In his written evidence, Mr Joseph Jnr testified about feeling ‘fearful’ of his elderly dad – but Mr Grant said there were no grounds for such a concern.

The conflict between Mr Manning Snr and his sons has played out against the background of their claims that their parents intend to cut them out of their inheritance.

That prompted the pair to sue for alleged breach of their rights to inherit Old Macdonald’s Farm and other prized Manning family assets.

In court documents, the Manning brothers say their dad and their mother Sindy, who own Old MacDonald’s Farm, ‘failed to act in good faith’, and they are now suing for ‘proprietary estoppel’ over these alleged broken promises.

The two siblings say they grew up believing they would end up running the entire family business and that their two sisters, Shannon, 33, and 40-year-old Chanel ‘would become their husbands’ responsibilities when they married’ or pursue different types of work.

Chanel was described as being apprenticed to the late fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood, with Shannon pursuing business studies.

But they say that in recent years their parents have turned against them and started planning to disinherit them, insisting that ‘it would be unconscionable for their parents to renege on their promises’ and change their wills.

Both brothers say they worked weekends and during school holidays as youngsters to help their parents, before leaving school to work full-time and clocking up 16-hour days at the height of the season.

And they claim they used their own money to buy some of the rides used at Old MacDonald’s Farm and by the family’s travelling fair.

The latter played a part in the 2000 Millennium celebrations in the Mall in London and now tours around the UK and various overseas locations.

Joseph Jnr says he was not paid a wage at all until June 2022 when handed £2,000 per month, while Clayton says he was paid £500 per month from 2013 – with both payments abruptly ceasing in August 2024.

Joseph Jnr also says he was in partnership with his parents since 2003 when he took out a mortgage to help buy Old MacDonald’s Farm with them.

Both brothers now seek a court ruling that would entitle them to inherit shares in the farm business and other family assets.

But in court, Joseph Snr’s barrister said his client had built up both arms of the family funfair business – Mannings Organisation and Mannings Amusement – and said he had been more than generous to his two sons.

The lawyer told the judge: ‘Until 2020 Joseph Snr was the majority shareholder in both companies. In 2020, he made gratuitous share transfers to his two sons, such that the shareholding in the companies has since then and is now held 33 percent by Joseph Jnr, 33 percent by Clayton and 34 percent by Joseph Snr.

‘Until 2024, Joseph Snr was the sole de jure director of both companies. By ordinary resolutions passed on July 10 2024, Joseph Jnr and Clayton appointed themselves as directors of the companies.

‘By further ordinary resolutions passed on 6 September 2024, they removed Joseph Snr as director. Since then, Joseph Jnr and Clayton have been the only directors of the two companies.’

The brothers’ bid for a court injunction on their father – with a threat of jail if breached – had to be seen ‘in the context of a broader family dispute between Joseph Jnr and Clayton on the one side and Joseph Snr together with his wife Sindy on the other’.

Mr Grant added: ‘Both parents are supported in the row by their daughters, Chanel and Shannon.

‘These companies were founded by my client and he strove over many decades to make them successful.’

In written evidence, Chanel claimed that Joseph Jnr had ‘provoked my father deliberately’, adding: ‘The only thing my father is guilty of is giving my brothers too much throughout their lives.’

In court documents, Joseph Snr insists both his sons have been amply provided for, with their shares in the two Manning companies collectively worth up to £7million.

He highlighted Joseph Jnr’s £1m collection of high performance cars – including an Aston Martin, E-type Jaguar and a Hummer which his father says he paid for.

Mr Manning Snr’s barrister dismissed the brothers’ court injunction bid as a disguised attempt simply to put the father behind bars, telling the judge: ‘This application has been confected in order to try and engineer the circumstances where they can accomplish their desire to see their father put in prison.’

Deputy Judge Kinnier has now reserved his decision on the question of whether he should extend a temporary injunction granted back in December last year restraining Joseph Snr from intimidating company staff.

That temporary injunction also restrained the father from setting up a stall or entering Winterland or Winter Wonderland events unless coming in as a ticket-paying visitor.