A pensioner has been cut out of his multi-millionaire’s father’s Will because he was an unplanned baby and was not wanted.
Retiree, Colin Johnston,77, believes his parents, Sidney and Elsie Johnston always preferred his little brother, Gary and his parents bared a grudge against him because his birth meant that his mother’s dream of becoming a movie star was taken away.
Mr Johnson claims that his mother told him as a child that
“I would have been a Hollywood film star if it wasn’t for you.”
In the latter years of his life, Johnston’s father made a point of buying manorial titles for Elsie, Gary and his two children which made them all lords and ladies – but excluded Colin so he was not made a lord.
With his mother passing away in 2013 and his brother Gary later in 2016, his late father, who died in 2017 at the age of 95 did not bequeath any of his £2.4m estate to his sole surviving child Colin.
Instead, his whole estate was left to his granddaughter, Lady Natalie Wackett, who was Gary’s daughter.
Colin Johnston is now in a legal battle with his 39-year-old niece, who is the executor of the estate, to get half of the share because he feels his father had a moral obligation to include him in his Will.
Lady Natalie claims that a wedge between Colin and his parents was all his own doing because of his ‘serious gambling habit’ and states firmly that his father was entitled to exclude him from getting a share of his estate.
However, Mr Johnston thinks the inconvenient timing of his arrival, before his parents were married, led to ill-feeling towards him which carried on throughout his life.
Mr Johnston told Judge Edwin Johnson QC that
“my mother was always cold to me” and another witness told the court that Elsie was “stylish and flamboyant”.
He said he had a much better relationship with his father as they shared a mutual interest in roman militaria and ancient Eqypt.
However, as years went by, a rift grew between father and son which led to Sidney cutting Colin out of his Will.
Colin’s barrister painted a picture that it was a traumatic war time birth, where Colin’s parents read their wedding vows six months before the birth – which ultimately pathed the way for bitter feelings to follow.
His barrister said:
“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.”
Mr Johnston, who resides in Barnet, London, says he is increasingly hard up and has to resort to part-time work as a driver to make ends meet.
However, Lady Wackett’s QC, Romie Tager refutes the claim that Colin was rejected as an infant and told Judge Edwin Johnson QC that
“Colin was not an unwanted war baby”. Colin’s parents were childhood sweethearts and “they were happily married at the time of the birth and Colin was born into a loving family.”
He added:
“he was loved, as a son should be, from the moment of his birth.”
