Paul Hitchcock: Richard Pratt’s love child given another chance to claim slice of late tycoon’s fortune

The love child of late billionaire Richard Pratt has been cleared to legally pursue a slice of his family fortune after the NSW Supreme Court ruled she was the daughter of the Melbourne tycoon and his wife.

Paula Hitchcock, 27, is locked in a fight with half-siblings, billionaire Visy boss Anthony Pratt, Heloise Waislitz and Fiona Geminder, to prove she is entitled to a portion of the Pratt Family Trust.

Ms Hitchcock is the biological daughter of Mr Pratt, who died in 2009, and his mistress Shari-Lea Hitchcock. The court agreed with her argument that she had an accepted place in the Pratt family and that essentially also made her a child of Mr Pratt’s wife, Jeanne.

Paula Hitchcock alleged she is a beneficiary of the estate and the trustee breached its duties and engaged in fraud because it acted at the directions of her half-siblings to exclude her in June 2001. The lawsuit has been mired in legal disputes between the family members for 30 months and Paula Hitchcock was today given permission by the court to file the sixth version of her pleadings.

Justice Michael Meek’s decision to allow her to re-plead her case, essentially gives her leave to argue that Mrs Pratt accepted her as part of the Pratt clan and as such, she could be viewed as a separate class of trust beneficiary.

“By her claim ... the plaintiff (Ms Hitchcock) seeks to demonstrate her status as a general beneficiary by a third avenue: as a specified beneficiary, on the basis that she is a child of Mr Pratt and Mrs Pratt, because she is an ‘illegitimate child’ of Mr Pratt who (a) was acknowledged by Mr Pratt as a member of his family,” Justice Meek said, according to The Australian.

Justice Meek said that such acknowledgement from both Mr and Mrs Pratt was grounds, in his view, to allow Ms Hitchcock to argue her case.

That argument included his view that for this particular application, “it is not evident to me that the word ‘parent’ . . . can only mean biological parent”.

Justice Meek also rejected arguments from the Pratt siblings’ legal team that allowing such a claim would lead to a significant “burden of discovery”.

However, her separate claims that the estate’s trustee breached its duties and engaged in fraud because it acted at the directions of her half-siblings to exclude her in June 2001 were effectively binned by Justice Meek.

He struck out key parts of her claims, including a bid to receive equitable compensation after finding she had failed to state exactly what loss she suffered because of this purported breach of duty.

The dismissed compensation claim is separate from the other claim she has been allowed to run, seeking portions of her father’s estate as his daughter.

The judge also struck out sections of her pleadings that alleged the trustee had engaged in “personal conscious and fraudulent bad faith” by permitting her to be excluded.

Ms Hitchcock argued that because the trustee was allegedly dishonest by agreeing to the exclusion, he was also dishonest by failing to send her money afterwards.

“I do not consider that that reasoning is sufficient,” the judge said. But Justice Meek found certain facts pleaded by Ms Hitchcock could lead to an inference there was other dishonesty in the trustee’s conduct if the matter went to trial.

The judge struck out claims the trustee had consciously decided to waive its exclusion of her from the estate by sending her some funds.

There were “not merely grave but insurmountable difficulties” with these allegations, the judge said.

Ms Hitchcock had an 18-year affair with Mr Pratt, the Visy Industries recycling tycoon who died worth an estimated $4 billion. She reached a settlement with his estate in 2015. His billionaire son Anthony Pratt is now executive chairman of Visy.

According to The Australian, Paula Hitchcock claimed she was regulary invited to the Pratt’s weekly Shabbat dinner, offered a bedroom at their Kew mansion and invited on holidays with the family.