MURDERED MOTHER’S ESTATE

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 November 1934, Page 5

MURDERED MOTHER’S ESTATE

A CHANCERY PROBLEM LONDON, October 6. A will dispute as a sequel to a murder and suicide was before Mr. Justice Clauson in , the Chancery Division yesterday. Thomas Bedford murdered his mother at Frome in September, 1933, and then ' committed suicide by gas poisoning.A coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of wilful murder and felo de se. On a summons taken out by Mr. Thomas Edwin Bedford, of Tennysonterrace, Bradford, the matter was now before the Court to determine who was entitled to the property of the murderer and his victim. The respondents were Miss Beatrice Wilson, of Bradford, Mr. Albert Edward William Sigsworth, of Knaresborough, and Miss Jane Elizabeth Sigsworth, of Burnt Yates, near Harrogate. Mr. Byrne, for the plaintiff, said Mrs. Sigsworth’s son was her sole beneficiary under her will. If it were held that she died intestate, the first respondent would, with the plaintiff, be entitled to her whole estate. If it were held that the son inherited the property, the first respondent would get only one-fourth. The other two respondents were interested in any estate as to which the son died intestate. The mother’s net estate was about £B,OOO. Mr. Justice Clauson, giving judgment said he had to assume that the mother was murdered by hei’ son. This involved the proposition that the son survived the mother. It was admitted that, in those circumstances, the son oi’ his personal representative could not claim any benefit under her will. In his view it was also contrary to public policy to allow relatives of the murderer to share in the victim’s estate. His lordship made a declaration that the son’s personal representatives' could not claim to share as such in the disposition of the estate in respect of which the mother died intestate. There was no statutory provision as to what should be done in a case like this, and, in the absence of anyone representing the Crown, he could not hold that the estate was bona vacintia (nobody’s property). The summons was adjourned with leave for the Attorney-Genferal to be added as a party if he so desired.