A former United Nations high flyer has won a High Court battle against her late partner’s disinherited son who has been handed a six-figure bill.
Property developer John Saville Thurston died aged 81 in January 2022 – six months after suffering a major stroke – and left his entire £500,000 estate to his partner of five years, Hannah Shabathai, who worked for the World Health Organisation for nearly 40 years.
But Mr Thurston’s decision to leave his inheritance to Ms Shabathai, who he met just months after his wife died, was challenged by his son Jonathan Saville Thurston.
The 64-year-old and his sister had stood to inherit his father’s wealth in a previous will and Jonathan took Ms Shabathai to court branding her a ‘narcissistic psychopath’ and claiming the 2019 will leaving everything to the 77-year-old was invalid, alleging ‘undue influence’.
He also claimed there was ‘substantial evidence of coercive control exercised by her over the deceased’.
Ms Shabathai’s barrister, James Poole, told Central London County Court that Jonathan had claimed she ‘ruthlessly preyed’ on Mr Thurston prior to his death.
Denying all the claims on her behalf, he told Judge Nigel Gerald that she had no need for Mr Thurston’s money, as she was already ‘financially very secure and much wealthier than the deceased’.
But, after his case collapsed on the first day of a planned three-day trial, Jonathan has been left facing a £216,000 legal costs bill.
Mr Poole told the court that John Saville Thurston had worked as a property developer based in the Wirral.
Pictured: Hannah Shabathai, who worked for the World Health Organisation for nearly 40 years, outside the High Court where she faced a legal challenge to a 2019 will which left the 77-year-old her partner’s entire £500,000 estate
Pictured: Jonathan Saville Thurston who took Ms Shabathai to court branding her a ‘narcissistic psychopath’ and claiming the 2019 will from his deceased father was invalid, alleging ‘undue influence’
He and Ms Shabathai had met in 2016, three months after his wife’s death.
‘They met in around April 2016 and over the next few months their relationship developed quickly,’ he said in written submissions to the court.
‘They moved in together in around January 2017 and thereafter they lived together as effectively husband and wife for the rest of his life.’
They originally lived in Geneva, where Ms Shabathai had enjoyed a successful career working for the UN in the WHO, before later returning to live in London.
The pair made mirror wills in 2019 which effectively cut Jonathan and his sister Katrina Thurston Lew out of their inheritance, as his previous 2013 will had made them his heirs if his wife died before him.
Although his new partner was already wealthy in her own right, Mr Thurston explicitly told his solicitors that ‘he chose not to make any provision for his children because he had already given them enough money during his lifetime’.
After he suffered a stroke in 2021, Ms Shabathai became his primary carer and helped hospital staff look after him.
The barrister told the judge that when the relationship first began, Mr Thurston’s children ‘welcomed her presence in their father’s life and considered her a kind and loving person’.
Pictured: John Saville Thurston who died aged 81 in January 2022 leaving his fortune to his partner of five years Ms Shabathai. Mr Thurston decision to leave his inheritance to his partner, who he met just months after his wife died, was challenged by his son
But they had subsequently ‘tried to rewrite history’ by challenging the will, he said, with his sister, Katrina, having originally been a party to the case but dropping out just before it reached court.
Jonathan’s attack on his father’s will was motivated by resentment towards Ms Shabathai said Mr Poole.
He told the court that none of Jonathan’s ‘scurrilous’ allegations had any bearing on the 2019 will
The barrister added: ‘What the defendants instead have tried is to concoct a narrative that Ms Shabathai was generally coercive and controlling over the deceased and that the 2019 will was made in this context.
‘This approach contradicts the actual evidence in this case and in particular that the will was made at the deceased’s own instigation and with his longstanding solicitors.
‘The 2019 will was a natural result of John’s affection for Ms Shabathai and also a result of the complex relationship that he had with his adult children. It was made in the context of her also making a will which left a far greater amount to John than she was left by him.’
Mr Poole continued that Jonathan’s claim of ‘undue influence’ was ‘little more than an emanation of his animosity towards Ms Shabathai’ and there was ‘no evidence whatsoever of coercive control by her’
During his brief cross-examination of Ms Shabathai, Jonathan quizzed her about the issue of undue influence, which ended up as his only challenge to the will, asking: ‘Do you accept that the 2019 will was prepared when the deceased was vulnerable?’
‘That’s not correct,’ she replied, saying her partner was a vital and healthy man until afflicted by the stroke in 2021.
‘He was a man of decisions – his own decisions – he was not a man to be influenced,’ she said, adding that she had no involvement in preparing his will.
‘He was a very level-headed and fit man given his age, there were no concerns apart from his heart at the time,’ she added, also denying claims that she ever deterred John’s family from visiting him in the years leading up to the 2019 will being made.
After personally cross-examining Ms Shabathai on the first day of the trial, Jonathan, who was representing himself in court, told the judge he was struggling with the case and must abandon his claim.
‘I can’t manage this, so that’s why I am agreeing to stop’, he said, explaining that he has problems with dyslexia and ‘neurodivergence’ which made it hard to cope with the vast amount of documentary material involved in litigation.
Judge Gerald said the 2019 will in favour of Ms Shabathai would now be admitted to probate in light of Jonathan ‘abandoning’ his claim of undue influence, also noting that he had fought his case ‘right up to the wire’ despite having no real evidence or grounds for his claims.
‘Very serious allegations were made, but it was difficult to see any real basis for founding the claim,’ said the judge, commenting that the trial had been scheduled to last three days but ended up being ‘abandoned halfway through the first day of the trial’.
‘Here – as far as I can tell – the reasons for the abandonment of the claim by Mr Saville Thurston was recognising that there was simply no basis for it, but also that he simply wasn’t properly prepared to cross-examine.’
There was, he said, ‘no meritorious basis for the claim at all,’ also noting: ‘the purpose of probate litigation is to resolve genuine disputes, it is not to be used as a forum for pursuing unmeritorious claims’.
As the loser, Jonathan was ordered to pay Ms Shabathai’s court costs, leaving him facing a lawyers’ bill estimated at £216,000, with £144,000 up front.
His sister, Katrina Thurston Lew, who had abandoned her opposition to the 2019 will shortly before trial, was also ruled liable for the costs’ bill until the date she pulled out of the litigation, although she was given time to appeal that decision due to being absent from court.