Family of Carry Keats in bitter court dispute over $1.5m fortune after dying pensioner ripped up will

A bitter family dispute has broken out over an inheritance after a “stubborn” pensioner tore up three-quarters of her will on her deathbed.

The £800,000 fortune of 92-year-old Carry Keats is now at the centre of a High Court battle between her relatives.

She ripped up pages of her will during her final illness in hospital, pitting her five distant cousins against her younger sister — with whom Mrs Keats had a “love-hate relationship”, a judge was told.

Under an 1837 Victorian law, anyone can legally revoke a will they have made by tearing it up as long as the action is carried out within certain guidelines.

If Mrs Keats is found to have legally destroyed the document and died without a valid will, her younger sister Josephine Oakley will inherit everything she owned.

Her cousins claim Mrs Keats did not want to leave her sister anything after accusations that Mrs Oakley had committed adultery in her younger days.

Headed by David Crew, the son of Mrs Keats’s and Mrs Oakley’s cousin Lucy Whitehorn, the cousins say the will should stand as she was only strong enough to tear it three-quarters of the way through, with the rest ripped up at her request by her solicitor.

They also argue that she did not have the mental capacity on her deathbed to change her mind about who got her fortune in such a dramatic fashion.

But Mrs Oakley, who denies the adultery claims, said her sister knew what she was doing and had decided to cut out the cousins after they proposed putting her in a care home, and it was what the sisters’ father “would have wanted”.

Mrs Keats died on February 15, 2022 — less than three weeks after tearing up her last will in hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Mrs Keats, who ran a successful caravan site, owned a home and land in Nomansland.

Some 18 months earlier, she had made a will that split almost everything she owned between the cousins.

Mr Crew had been close friends with Mrs Keats and her late husband for decades.

The other cousins are Mr Crew’s sister Angela and Kevin, Jason and Leon Whitehorn.

In January 2022, Mrs Keats, who was described as “stubborn” and “old-fashioned” in court documents, sent for her long-time lawyer Hafwen Webb as she lay in hospital and tore up her will in front of her, the court heard.

Ms Webb told the court: “[Mrs Keats’s] character hadn’t changed. She knew who I was and why I was there. I told her repeatedly that if she died intestate Jo would inherit. She said their father would be pleased.”

The judge will give his ruling on the case at a later date.