EXCLUSIVE
A former private schoolgirl blocked from inheriting her father’s $12million fortune because she’s unemployed is still living in squalid housing – and her wife has now been caught drug driving.
Clare Brown did not appear in court to support her wife Lauren Barr as the heiress’s 39-year-old partner pleaded guilty to drug driving near the couple’s dilapidated western Sydney suburbs rental.
Ms Brown, who attended elite private girls’ school Ascham and travelled the world with her wealthy dad as he made millions on the stock market, is living on welfare in Sydney‘s ‘struggle street’ suburb of Mount Druitt.
Now Ms Brown – who last complained of being ‘broke’ and unable to work – and her wife seem to have slipped further into financial woes, with Barr caught driving an unregistered vehicle.
The black Ford Captiva with a mauve registration plate adorned with Gay Pride stickers was both uninsured and out of registration when police say she drove it under the influence of drugs.
Lauren Barr, the wife of heiress Clare Brown, arrives at Mount Druitt court on Thursday to plead guilty to drug driving
Elite private schoolgirl and $12m heiress Clare Brown went from living in a luxury Darling Point apartment to a dingy rental in Mount Druitt which she shares with her wife Lauren while subsisting on a disability pension
Clare Brown, who travelled the world with her dad Christopher Brown (above, the pair overseas in the late 1990s) while he made a fortune in shares, is fighting for her inheritance
The car wasn’t parked at the rental house where Barr and Ms Brown are living 50km west of where they resided two years ago the late Christopher Hylton Brown’s $5million waterfront apartment at exclusive Darling Point.
On Thursday, Ms Brown’s wife was driven to Mount Druitt Local Court on Thursday for a brief hearing at which she pleaded guilty to driving a vehicle under the influence of drugs, and using an unregistered vehicle on a road.
Court documents say the drugs in Barr’s system were Doxylamine and Zopiclone, both anti-insomnia drugs, when she drove between 10.30pm and 11.50pm on George Street, Mount Druitt in late 2022.
Magistrate Timothy Khoo adjourned the matter for sentence until March 27.
Barr was also charged with shoplifting, but the charge was dismissed and she was discharged into the care of a responsible person on the condition she comply with a treatment plan.
The long running $14m will dispute Ms Brown is fighting is now entering its third year, as the couple appears to be struggling to pay rent as they wait on the public housing list for accommodation.
After her father Christopher Hylton Brown died in Melbourne in early 2022, Ms Brown learned she had been denied access to her inheritance because of two clauses inserted by him in his will.
The will stipulated that she could only collect her inheritance ‘if she gets a job and contributes something to society’.
Lauren Barr (blue shirt) was driven from Mount Druitt court, to Westfield where she spent an hour shopping, then to a liquor store and a Petbarn before being drive back to the rental she shares with her heiress wife Clare Brown
Heiress Clare Brown and her wife Lauren lived in Clare’s late dad’s Darling Point apartment before having to move out to a dingy Mount Druitt rental as she fights for her inheritance
The legal dispute over Ms Brown’s potential $12m inheritance has meant the granting of the will is still caught up in the Victoria Supreme Court.
The court told Daily Mail Australia probate has not yet been granted, whereby the will is confirmed valid and the executor has permission to distribute the estate.
When the will dispute began in 2022, Ms Brown claimed relatives who were executors of her father’s estate had told lies about her.
This included a claim that when the couple lived in her father’s Darling Point property, they had ‘trashed’ the premises before moving to the $420-a-week Mount Druitt house with their young daughter.
Ms Brown said she finds it impossible to work because she has Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and ‘high-functioning autism’, and further claimed she couldn’t get a job because of her sexuality.
Barr’s mother, Ruth, said her unemployed daughter-in-law couldn’t work because ‘she hates crowds, can’t concentrate and people hate her because she’s gay’.
Clare’s wife Lauren Barr was driven to Mount Druitt Local Court, with no sign of the black Captiva which she drove uninsured and unregistered while under the influence of prescription drugs
Lauren Barr and Clare Brown lived at the Darling Point apartment of Clare’s late father, but a dispute over inheritance forced them out to the west where they appear to be struggling with finances
Christopher Hylton Brown (above) made a fortune on the stock market and left property and $12million in his will, but he stipulated that for daughter Clare to inherit the money she had to get a job
Ms Brown’ twin cousins, believed to have been appointed executors of their late uncle Christopher Brown’s multi-million dollar estate, told Nine’s A Current Affair two years ago that Ms Brown and her wife left the $5million property strewn with clothing and rubbish.
Ms Brown admitted she had gone on the dole while still receiving a $500-a-week allowance from her father, but said it was from necessity and ‘financial abuse’.
‘I didn’t start on Centrelink because I wanted to, my dad kept on cutting me off,’ she said.
In May 2002, Ms Brown tried to have the locks changed on the Darling Point apartment and police were called.
The property has been renovated by one of her relatives who was granted four years free occupancy by the late Mr Brown to refurbish the flat.
Clare travelled the world with her wealthy stockbroker father who made millions out of shares and then left it to her in his will after he died in January, but there was a catch
Clare Brown in the kitchen of the basic rental she shares with her wife Laurent in the western Sydney suburb of Mount Druitt as the fight for her $12million inheritance continues
Ms Brown was being paid an allowance before her father’s January 2022 death, but said that ceased and that her father’s $12m estate ‘is rightfully mine’.
Christopher Brown died aged 75 in Melbourne and due to the fact his wife was already deceased and Clare was their only child, she is believed to be the sole heir to the bulk of his fortune.
Ms Brown’s mother-in-law said if anyone claimed Clare was well-off they were ‘telling lies’.
‘She’s got no money. Why else would she be living in f***ing Mount Druitt,’ Ms Barr said.
Asked if she wanted to work, Ms Brown has previously told Channel 9: ‘Yes and no. I understand why these people want me to be a functioning person in society, however, you have to look at my diagnosis and realise that’s just not going to happen.
‘Can you please stop with this whole… me getting a job. It’s not going to happen,’ she said.
Clare Brown’s wife Lauren Barr says the heiress has such bad ADHD she needs a daily checklist to remind her to feed herself and their three cats
‘I have called myself a broke millionaire because I am broke constantly and can’t do anything about it.’
Her LinkedIn profile says she was a receptionist after leaving Ascham, ran her own dog-walking, pet-sitting and animal photography business Canines, Cats and Clare for just over a year, and has worked as an administrative assistant at the autism group Aspect.
She said the fact her cousins were preventing her from accessing her fortune would make her father embarrassed at their treatment of her, rather than her being an embarrassment to the family, which is what they have claimed.
Clare’s cousin Jimmy said the family had ‘nothing but love for Clare’, however she needed ‘a wake-up call’ and could find work as a volunteer if she couldn’t hold down paid work.
According to Jimmy, if Ms Brown ‘ticks the two boxes’ of getting a job and contributing something to society, she ‘can access all the money you like’.
‘Instead of her agreeing to her dead dad’s wishes, she turns around and sues her trusts, that’s the extremes she went to so she didn’t have to work,’ he said.
‘It’s just embarrassing to have a cousin who has millions at her fingertips to sit and take the government money every week is highly embarrassing and highly un-Australian.’
Ms Brown said if her NDIS funding increases she may one day be able to get a job.
‘I just want what is rightfully mine. And I want these people to get out of their heads that I am ever going to get a job,’ she said.
Do you know more? Email: candace.sutton@mailonline.com
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk