The multi-million pound fortune of a ‘scrap king’ who fell out with all of his children has been claimed by his youngest son after a bitter sibling dispute in court.
In the weeks before his death aged 83, dad-of-three Tom Goodwin attempted to cut Gary out of his will.
The ‘wily’ businessman, nicknamed the thrifty Yorkshireman, amassed a lucrative property and business portfolio, having started out with a scrapyard in Barnsley in 1967.
But the new will, which would have seen his entire £4 million fortune go to the daughter of his eldest child Jacqueline Avison, a 61-year-old caravan boss, was never written.
The family affair played out in the High Court in London, which heard Tom wrote a will in 2000 in which his middle child, Gillian, 59, would inherit a house at one of his two farms, Pear Tree and Santingley Grange, near Wakefield.
But they fell out and in 2005, he made a new will under which shares in the company which owns the farms and farming business would go into a trust for the benefit of his granddaughter, Jacqueline’s keen horsewoman daughter Nicola Smith, 36.
His second wife Valerie would get his personal chattels, an income and a home for life, with the rest spread among his 10 grandchildren. Gary would inherit only his father’s Rolls Royce.
Gary had been ‘largely out of favour’ at the time and his father was reluctant to hand him any property, for fear that one of his son’s ‘fancy women’ might take it in turn, Judge Malcolm Davis-White QC said.
But the court heard that over the following years, there was a reconciliation between the pair, with the son giving up his offshore work and coming to work on Tom’s farm.
It resulted in a new will in 2017, under which Gary would receive Tom’s luxury car, Pear Tree Farm, a lifetime interest in Santingley Grange and the reins to his business.
Just a year later, in the summer of 2018, the pensioner fell out with Gary again and he contacted his solicitors to discuss a new will under which everything he had would go to Nicola.
But Tom died in November before it could be finalised.
Describing Tom as ‘someone who would often say one thing to one person and another thing to another person,’ the judge said: ‘The breakdowns in relationships often seemed bitter and protracted.
‘Tom would use strong language about persons he had fallen out with. These family breakdowns would often be characterised by a position taken by Tom that he would not give that person any of his property, whether inter vivos or by will on his death.’
Judge Davis-White approved the 2017 will and ordered that the costs of the case be picked up by Jacqueline, Nicola and three grandchildren of Tom’s who had supported them.
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