Challen v Challen & anor [2020] WTLR 859

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2020 #180

C and Richard Challen (the deceased) were in a relationship for 40 years and had two children (the defendants). Throughout that period the deceased subjected C to sustained coercive control, leaving her in an abnormal psychiatric state. On 15 August 2010 C killed the deceased with a hammer and was convicted of his murder in 2011. In February 2019 that conviction was quashed and the matter remitted for a retrial, and in June 2019 C was convicted upon a guilty plea of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. Under the common law ‘forfeiture rule’ C was precluded from benefiting...

Ninian v Findlay & ors [2019] WTLR 645

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2019 #175

Mr and Mrs Ninian were married in 1983 when he was aged 49 and she was aged 28. They had a long and loving marriage but had no children or dependents. Thirty years later, when he was aged 80, Mr Ninian was diagnosed with a progressive incurable disease, Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy. In about August 2016, without his wife’s knowledge or assistance, Mr Ninian contacted Dignitas as he had evidently decided to end his life before his disease entered the final stages. When he told his wife of his decision, she tried to dissuade him from going through with his plan. Mr Ninian was resolute i...

Chadwick v Collinson & ors [2014] EWHC 3055 (Ch)

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | January/February 2015 #146

Lisa Jane Clay (the deceased) and the claimant lived together from about 2003. They had a child together named Joseph, who was six years old in April 2013. From January 2013, they lived at the property at 36 Lowlands Road, Lancashire (the property) which the claimant and the deceased held as joint tenants. The deceased made a will on 18 August 2008 under which the claimant was the sole residuary beneficiary. The net value of the estate was £79,098.87 of which £60,000 comprised the deceased’s interest in the property. The couple’s relationship was at all times entirely stable,...