Pensioner is locked in court battle with his niece, 39, over half the family’s fortune

Colin Johnston, 77, (pictured outside London’s High court) says his parents Sidney and Elsie Johnston always favoured his little brother, Gary

A pensioner who says his multi-millionaire father cut him out of his will because he was an ‘unwanted war baby’ is in a legal battle with his niece for half his fortune.

Colin Johnston, 77, says his parents Sidney and Elsie Johnston always favoured his little brother, Gary, and he was resented because of his birth that put paid to his mother’s dreams of being a movie star.

Mr Johnston, born during World War Two, claims his mother always dreamed of being on stage or screen and told him as a child: ‘I would have been a Hollywood film star if it wasn’t for you.’ 

Llater in life, his father bought Elsie and Gary plus his two children manorial titles – making them all lords and ladies – but snubbed Colin so he remained plain Mr Colin Johnston.

Mother Elsie died in 2013 and brother Gary in 2016, but when father Sidney passed away in 2017, aged 95, he left none of his £2.4m fortune to sole surviving child Colin.

Instead, he left the lot to his ‘adored’ granddaughter, Lady Natalie Wackett, Gary’s daughter.

Colin is now suing his 39-year-old niece – to whom the court was told he used to give pocket money when she was small – as executor of the estate, for a half share.

He claims his father had a moral obligation to remember him in his will.

But Lady Natalie says Colin himself drove a wedge between him and his parents with his ‘serious gambling habit’ and insists his father was entitled to cut him out of the family fortune.

Denying her claims, Colin’s barrister, David Giles, told London’s High Court that he had been his parents’ ‘unwanted war baby,’ his birth coming in the difficult days of 1942 with WWII still raging and his father serving in the RAF.

The inconvenient timing of the pregnancy, before his parents were married, poisoned their attitude towards Colin throughout his life, he claimed.

Colin is now suing his 39-year-old niece - Lady Natalie Wackett (pictured) as executor of the estate, for a half share

Colin is now suing his 39-year-old niece – Lady Natalie Wackett (pictured) as executor of the estate, for a half share

‘My mother was always cold to me,’ Colin told Judge Edwin Johnson QC from the witness box. Another witness described Elsie as ‘stylish and flamboyant’.

‘She once said to me: ‘I would have been a Hollywood film star if it wasn’t for you’,’ he said in evidence, explaining outside court that whilst she worked as a seamstress, his mother had ‘dreams’ of being on the stage and in movies but ‘never made it’.

He got on better with his father he said, adding that they shared an interest in Roman militaria and ancient Egypt.

‘My father was alright at times,’ he told the judge.

But a rift grew between father and son as they got older, which ultimately led to Sidney cutting Colin out of his will.

His barrister said the traumatic wartime birth – with Colin’s parents marrying six months before he was born – coloured everything that followed.

‘Colin says these circumstances fed into later years, feeding a determination that Colin would not inherit, and favouritism expressed towards Gary, and later his daughter Natalie,’ said the barrister.

Lady Natalie (pictured outside court) says Colin himself drove a wedge between him and his parents with his 'serious gambling habit'

Lady Natalie (pictured outside court) says Colin himself drove a wedge between him and his parents with his ‘serious gambling habit’

Sidney Johnston, who built up a thriving car and property business in north London called Johnston and Sons, styled himself Lord Johnston, having bought a clutch of manorial titles for himself and his relatives.

His wife, Lady Elsie, his second son, Lord Gary, and his granddaughter, Lady Natalie, were all dished out with titles.

Colin is Natalie’s godfather and she told the judge he used to dole out £1 pocket money to her when he dropped in to see her family during her childhood.

Colin, of Barnet, north London, says he is increasingly hard up in his old age, and even resorts to part-time work as a driver to keep afloat.

He says his father’s will was unjust and failed to make reasonable provision for him, particularly given his advanced age.

Natalie, of Waltham Cross, Herts, by contrast, has bagged her grandparents’ entire fortune and now stands at the helm of the family business.

The mother-of-four stepped in to run the business after her father died, the court heard, shouldering ‘considerable financial responsibility and commitment’.

And Natalie’s QC, Romie Tager, scorned the idea that Colin was ever rejected as an infant.

‘It’s our case that Colin was not an unwanted war baby,’ he told Judge Edwin Johnson QC.

‘His mother was unmarried at the time she discovered her pregnancy, but Elsie had been Sidney’s childhood sweetheart.

‘They were happily married at the time of the birth and Colin was born into a loving family.

‘He was loved, as a son should be, from the moment of his birth.’

Colin, who went to work with Sidney aged 15, alleges his father promised that the work he did in the family business ‘would provide me with an income for life’.

He toiled alongside Sidney and his brother, Gary, until he left the business following a terminal rift in 1991 and now complains that his brother was ‘lazy and didn’t pull his weight’.

He was effectively forced out amid increasing hostility from his parents and brother, who was being given ever greater responsibility in the firm, says Colin.

But Natalie’s barrister gave a different version of past events: ‘Her case is that Colin had a serious gambling habit, which led to him cheating his father’s car business, and that Colin walked out when his dishonesty came to light and he was confronted by Sidney.’

From the 1980s onwards, Sidney became ‘increasingly concerned’ about Colin’s gambling habit and the people with whom he was hanging around, said the QC.

‘That is the probable explanation for why from around 1984 his parents were of the view that he could not be trusted with any inheritance – that he would gamble it away to cover his debts,’ he added.

Nor had Colin shown himself to be a dutiful son to his parents in their declining years, Mr Tager alleged, making no effort to reconcile with them and being absent from both their funerals.

Colin vehemently denied he had ever cheated the family car business.

Natalie told the court she knew from her childhood that she would inherit her grandfather’s business and fortune one day, although it was not something she dwelt on.

‘In my teenage years my grandfather would talk to me about it – that it was his intention that the estate would be mine one day,’ she said.

‘But I didn’t have a relationship with him based on what I could get from that relationship.

‘He was my grandfather and I adored both him and my grandmother.’

Colin insisted he had always tried to be a good son and did not attend his mother’s funeral only because his father had advised him to stay away.

He had loved his father and was upset by his death – although Sidney had ‘done him out of everything,’ he told the court.

Colin also claims his father may have left behind far more than the £2.4m gross estate declared in his will, suggesting there were hidden assets worth over £10m mainly in the form of krugerrands and other gold coins.

Mr Tager said Colin’s £13m estimate of the true value of the estate was ‘gross exaggeration’ and also disputed claim that he is strapped for cash.

The case continues. 

 

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