Enid Thackwell, 95, died in 2022 and her son Darryl and daughter Karen Hooper have since been involved in a High Court dispute over her estate. Photo / Supplied
Enid Thackwell, 95, died in 2022 and her son Darryl and daughter Karen Hooper have since been involved in a High Court dispute over her estate. Photo / Supplied
A man has been ordered to pay back more than $300,000 after a judge said he obtained the money from his elderly mother and got her to write a will in his favour by “undue influence”.
Darryl Ronald Thackwell has also been ordered to pay his sister more than$43,000 in court costs in a dispute over the estate of their late mother, Enid Thackwell, who died in Invercargill in May 2022, aged 95.
However, Thackwell, 68, maintained that he does not owe anyone anything and said he will not comply with the court directives.
“And when people are after money, mate, they will trash you to bloody not only 500, but ... to 1000m below gutter level, just to get their hands on money,” Thackwell said.
“It’s all about ... extracting money out of some poor bastard. The poor bastard being me.
“Well, it’s not going to happen.
“I’ll tell the bloody judges, I don’t give a s*** what comes out of this, judgments or otherwise. I am not complying, and I will make that known.”
He was talking to NZME after three decisions by Justice Melanie Harland in the High Court went against him and in favour of his sister, Karen Lee Hooper.
The first set aside Enid Thackwell’s only will, made in 2014, and appointed Hooper the administrator of her estate.
The second set aside a “deed of forgiveness” agreement that wiped out a debt connected to the transfer of Enid’s house in New Brighton, Christchurch, to Darryl.
This means Darryl, who now lives in Invercargill, is now required to pay $305,000 back to the estate.
The third decision awarded Hooper more than $43,400 in court costs and disbursements arising from her expenses in fighting the case.
Enid Thackwell, who died in 2022, her husband Ronald, who died in 2013, and their daughter Karen Hooper. Photo / Supplied
Hooper, who lives in Perth, Western Australia, told the court her brother had been abusive towards her all her life, calling her an “adopted bitch” and telling her she would get nothing from her parents’ estates.
Their father, Ronald Thackwell, died in 2013.
Even though the decisions have gone in her favour, Hooper is not optimistic she will see any of the money.
“Wouldn’t that be lovely,” she told NZME.
“That would be amazing if I did but, no, I don’t think so, for some reason.”
Justice Harland said evidence before her suggested Darryl Thackwell did not provide his mother with all the necessities when she lived with him in Invercargill in the years before she died.
Instead, he bombarded care services with abusive emails and phone communications.
Nor did he replace Enid’s false teeth when she lost them, meaning she had to eat soft food for her last eight years.
Mother ‘deprived of funds’
“She [Enid] was deprived of the funds she required to live a comfortable life in her later years,” Justice Harland said.
But Darryl Thackwell said the relationship he had with his mother at that time was “absolutely brilliant”.
He said she lived until she was 95, “so I must have been doing something right”.
Regarding her false teeth, he said: “The hospital wouldn’t wear the cost. That’s where that all fell apart.”
The court judgments state that Enid and Ronald had lived in the home in Estuary Rd, New Brighton, since Ronald built it in 1948.
In the year after Ronald died, Enid made her only will, in October 2014, appointing Darryl her executor and only beneficiary.
On the same day, she signed an agreement to sell the house to Darryl for $305,000.
A month later, she signed two documents – one acknowledging she had lent the $305,000 to Darryl to buy the property, and another one, a “deed of forgiveness” of the debt, which meant he did not have to repay the money.
Darryl later sold the Estuary Rd property and bought two properties in Invercargill. Enid went to live with him in one of them.
Justice Harland said Enid was 87 years old when she signed the documents and CT scans seven months later showed brain changes indicative of dementia.
A diagnosis of advanced dementia was made in January 2016 and confirmed in August that year.
Although these diagnoses were after she made her will and signed the documents concerning the sale of the house, Enid’s testamentary capacity in October 2014 was a “tenable issue”, the judge said.
He said Darryl had the obligation to show that Enid did have capacity to do those things, and he had failed to provide any such evidence.
“It has, in my view, been demonstrated that the will is invalid due to both lack of testamentary capacity and undue influence,” Justice Harland said.
“The gift of the Estuary Rd property to Darryl was unduly influenced and an unconscionable dealing.”
He is likely to remain a beneficiary of the estate under the normal rules of inheritance, which would split the inheritance equally between him and his sister.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.
