there was no Will and the Bank Accounts
Before her death, in the first week of June 2006 on an afternoon when I visited my mother on the Palliative Ward of the hospital, I found her visibly distressed. She told me that the evening before my brother Edwin had visited her in hospital and had asked her to sign papers transferring her Abbey National bank account over to him. She told me she had refused to sign the documents my brother had brought in. However she said she had provided my brother with the PIN-numbers to her accounts, which she told me she regretted doing. I didn't know what to make of this. The next day when I visited her, I was relieved to see that my mother was no longer distressed and that my mother was more relaxed. She told me not to concern myself further, since she and my brother had sorted matters out the previous evening. At this reassurance, I thought nothing more on the matter.
My mother had decided that she would not write a Will. Before her death, she assured me that Edwin had told her he would be reasonable in matters of her Estate.
Three weeks after my mother's death, on 17th July 2006 I received a letter hand-delivered through the door of 74 Main Street in Egremont from my brother telling me that my mother's Estate was penniless, and further that the Estate was in debt to the tune of £8K and that the flat in Egremont was the only asset of any size and that therefore it must be sold. His letter said the proceeds from the sale of the flat in Egremont would pay off the Estate's liabilities and that after the funeral and a new headstone had been paid for then the residue would be split between him and me. The house at 8 Craig Drive was Edwin's.
I wrote back to my brother asking if I could see the statements of my mother's bank accounts, including copies of her credit card statements. Apart from my mother's Barclaycard statement which was delivered by post to the flat in Egremont, all other papers and bank and credit card statements relating to my mother's Estate were at my mother's address at Craig Drive in Whitehaven and were now in my brother's hands.
On 1st August 2006, feeling decidedly very unwell, I struggled down the street to my doctor's surgery at Beech House in Egremont and promptly collapsed at the reception desk. My G.P. Dr Bewick was present at the time and he phoned for an ambulance and I was admitted directly on to the wards of the West Cumberland Hospital. I was informed later that over the period most likely from 29th July to 31st July 2006 I had suffered a major loss of blood into the stomach whilst at the flat in Egremont. In hospital I was given a transfusion of 5 units of blood over 48 hours and kept under observation for 6 days. An endoscopy identified a stomach ulcer as responsible for the blood loss. On my release from hospital my G.P. Dr Bewick was to describe this incident as a "close shave". My haem blood count had fallen to 5.0, from a typical norm of 13.5 for an adult male. So something like two thirds of my blood had leaked through the ulcer into my stomach. It is a matter of medical opinion that this emergency for me had been brought on by the stress of watching my mother's protracted death over the previous months, over which period of time the ulcer had developed. Also, such bleeds are a common side-effect of the medication Oruvail200 which I had been taking as a pain killer. Dr Bewick changed my prescription to Cocodamol in order to deal with the chronic back pain from which I was suffering.
Before I entered hospital on the occasion of the stomach bleed I had asked my brother to show me the statements of my mother's bank accounts, especially her principal current account with the Abbey National. All my mother's papers were with my brother at the house in Whitehaven. My brother did not forward me the statements of my mother's accounts which I had asked to see. I did not hear anything from my brother on the matter of my mother's bank account statements. After my discharge from hospital in August 2006 I wrote to my brother again and I insisted on seeing the statements of my mother's bank accounts before any approach was made to engage the services of lawyers for the handling of the Estate, but my brother did not contact me and I was not shown the statements he had in his possession. (When later in April 2007 I was to ask my brother why he chose not to share with me copies of the statements of my mother's bank accounts when I had asked to see them he was to defend his behaviour in the following terms, he said "I was not going to bloody run around after you.")
Around about early September 2006 my brother engaged Bleasdales & Co Solicitors of Scotch Street in Whitehaven as his own solicitors, to act solely for him alone. Bleasdales wrote to me to say they were instructed by my brother and they asked me when I was to vacate the flat in Egremont which was the only asset of my mother's Estate, and must be sold. I wrote back and I asked Bleasdales if I could see my mother's bank and credit card accounts. Bleasdales responded by sending me a letter which contained an overview listing the Estate's liabilities, but they did not send me any copies of the statements of any of my mother's accounts. The letter which they sent was sketchy in general and contained apparent discrepancies. When I asked to see the actual statements of my mother's accounts, my request was met with silence. I waited patiently, but it became obvious that neither Bleasdales nor my brother were going to send me copies of the statements of my mother's bank and credit card statements. In response, and in order to gain access to my mother's bank statements through the bank, I applied for and obtained Letters of Administration at the Carlisle Probate Sub-Registry. Again I asked Bleasdales to advise my brother to share with me the statements of the bank and credit card accounts of my mother's Estate. Again this request was met with silence from both my brother's solicitors and from my brother himself.
I wrote directly to Abbey National asking for copies of the bank statements of my mother's account, but Abbey National declined even though I presented them with Letters of Administration made out to me in respect of my mother's Estate. They said that at my mother's death her account with Abbey National, which “was placed in joint names prior to her death”, had been transferred into the sole ownership of the remaining living joint account holder, who is Mr Edwin Sharpe, to whom they now owed “a duty of care and confidentiality” (32A). Therefore, the Abbey National bereavement department said that if I wanted to see any statements relating to my late mother's account, I would need the permission of the new owner of the account, who was now my brother Edwin.
On 4th October 2006 I was granted Letters of Administration at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Probate Registry (33A). In making this application for Probate, I intended to require Abbey National to provide me with the historic records of my mother's bank account, and therefore establish the whereabouts of all the savings she had in 1998, 1999, 2000 and later. It was during this period that the new house in Whitehaven was purchased and over this period that it appeared that my mother had lost her money. I could not believe my mother had died penniless. However, Abbey National was to continue to insist that my mother's account had been transferred into the property of my brother and therefore I had to ask my brother to see the history of this account's statements.
My mother's Abbey National bank account would have included the accumulated total of her pension income over the 16-week period she spent in the West Cumberland Hospital (34A, 34B and 34C). It also had the accumulated Attendance Allowance for that same period which had been applied for by her MacMillan Nurse Jeremy Watkins (34D). Altogether this would amount to gross income of £4001.18 in cash in her Abbey National account, which account had now become the property of my brother Edwin (50A).
In the weeks which followed I wrote to Bleasdales & Co Solicitors on half a dozen occasions asking them to advise their client (my brother Edwin) to show me copies of the statements to my mother's bank accounts (35A & 35B). These bank statements were in Edwin's possession. Despite having obtained Letters of Administration I was to encounter a "wall of silence" on this matter from Bleasdales and I was to receive no response from my brother. These statements were being kept from me.
As administrator of the estate, I wrote to Halifax Bank of Scotland about my mother's accounts, since my brother had refused to show me these. At her death in June 2006, my mother's HBOS credit card account was £6629.97 in debt (36A). Also, her Barclaycard, which statement was still delivered to the flat in Egremont, was £689.12 in debt (36B). In my letter to Bleasdales dated 31st October 2006 I asked how it was that Edwin explained that my mother had gone over £7000 in debt on credit cards while living under the same roof as Edwin, and whilst at the same time she was in receipt of two pensions and while she was also getting £50 a week rent off me (36C). I received no reply on this matter from either Bleasdales or my brother.
On 17th September 2006 I wrote to Bleasdales (ref. 35A) and asked them to advise their client to have returned to me items of my property which remained at my mother's home Craig Drive. These included, for example, a six volume "Animal Life" which I had bought with my pocket money as a child. My brother ignored my requests.
I decided to visit my brother in late January, and I went round to Craig Drive in Whitehaven. My brother showed me copies of the statements of my mother's Abbey National account for the 12 months previous to her death. They showed she had no savings as of date June 2005 onward, at least in this account. I asked to see her Abbey statements going back over the years previous to June 2005. My brother said he had asked for these but that Abbey National had yet to provide them. At this stage, it was six months since my mother's death. I asked if my brother would hurry Abbey National along in providing this record of past statements previous to 2005.
The record of statements of my mother's Abbey account showed that between 02 June 2006 and 12 June 2006 a total of £700 cash was withdrawn from the account by ATM. The account was £810.85 in credit on 20 June 2006, which was the last transaction listed in the statements provided to me. After 23 June 2006 the account was transferred into Edwin's name and property.
My brother did not show me any of the past statements for the credit card accounts in my mother's name at Craig Drive. My mother's debts on credit cards were more than £7000. I asked my brother how he explained that my mother had gone over £7000 in debt on credit cards whilst living under the same roof as him, and whilst at the same time she was in receipt of two pensions and while she was getting £50 a week rent off me. My brother's response was to say that he paid his way, but I could get nothing more specific or detailed from him. He was not in a mood to be questioned on the subject.
My brother agreed that a lot of my mother's money was missing, in fact all of her savings appeared to be missing. When I asked him how he thought this had come about, he explained to me that my mother had had a "spending habit". He referred to her "thing" for buying shoes, which she tried on and then discarded. My brother said he would be required to haul bags of them off to local charity shops to give away. He estimated she could well have spent £20,000 on shoes in this way. He referred to her liking for telephone shopping. He referred to “commemorative plates”. I did not question my brother in detail on these matters, since it did not seem prudent.
When I visited my brother I told him I was contemplating suicide. He asked me not to commit suicide in the flat, since this would affect its re-sale value.
I remember thinking at the time that my brother surprised me by his philosophical and resigned approach to the whole matter of my mother's apparently missing fortune. Given my brother's keen appreciation of money I had expected him to have blown a fuse. Instead his demeanour was outwardly calm about the situation, except when I pressed him to chivvy along Abbey National into chasing-up the past record of my mother's bank account, when he would begin to react badly to me.
I again visited my brother at Craig Drive in February. I asked if the statements of my mother's Abbey National account for before June 2005 had arrived. He said they had not. I asked if I could contact Abbey National directly. He became angry and said he would deal with it.
He said he had taken the diamond ring in my mother's jewellery collection to be valued. This was the ring my mother had shown me and told me was worth £4K. Edwin told me the ring had been identified as a cheap foreign copy. My brother asked me who I thought might have switched it for the real one. He suggested my mother's sister Aunt Betty was the main suspect, citing one of my Aunt Betty's visits in 2006 when she stayed at Craig Drive as the possible occasion for the switch of the jewel. Some months later Edwin was to show me this switched “diamond” ring, and indeed it was a ring of dull silver metal with a poor looking glass “stone” in it – not at all the ring I remember my mother showing me before.
In March 2007 my brother came round to the flat at 74 Main Street in Egremont with the record of past statements of my mother's Abbey National account to show me. However, these dated back only as far as 2001. He left them with me to study. The first and most obvious feature was that my mother had been effectively penniless from 2001 onwards. I had wanted to see copies of statements going back to 1998, when the house in St Bees was sold for £80,000 and including the year 2000 when the house at Whitehaven had been bought. But Edwin did not have any copies for before January 2001, which was four months after the house in Whitehaven had been bought.
In fact on 26/01/2001 my mother's Abbey account was overdrawn by £608.12, which date is the earliest entry on the first page of her account's statements shown to me by Edwin, which had been provided by the Abbey Bereavement Centre (50A). It was unfortunate that these statements only went back to January 2001, and not to 1998 when the house in St Bees was sold for £80,000 or to September 2000 when the house at Craig Drive was bought for £65,000.
The Abbey National account was my mother's main working account. My mother's DWP State Pension and her Rhodia Pension went directly into her Abbey current account.
Also, the Abbey account statements showed that the monthly interest payment on my mother's HBOS credit card account was serviced by automatic monthly transfers by direct debit drawn on her Abbey National account. Examination of the historic statements of the Abbey National account confirmed that the debt of £6629.97 as of 23/06/2006 on her HBOS credit card had accumulated gradually month on month over the years from since when she took out the credit card on 22/02/2002, over the period of time whilst she was living at 8 Craig Drive and using the card to buy food and groceries at the supermarket.