{"id":660,"date":"2015-12-23T16:21:30","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T16:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tayloremmet.co.uk\/blogs\/?p=660"},"modified":"2015-12-23T16:21:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T16:21:30","slug":"ongoing-will-forgery-case-sees-appeal-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tayloremmet.co.uk\/blogs\/ongoing-will-forgery-case-sees-appeal-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Ongoing will forgery case sees appeal dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">You may have seen\u00a0in the news this week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/uknews\/law-and-order\/10694666\/Man-forged-mothers-signature-to-cut-sister-from-will.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a\u00a0story\u00a0about a\u00a0Court of Appeal decision given in the case of <\/a><b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/uknews\/law-and-order\/10694666\/Man-forged-mothers-signature-to-cut-sister-from-will.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Watts v Watts<\/a>,<\/i><\/b><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> which left one of the two children of Valerie Watts facing a bill for \u00a3340,000 from his sister\u2019s solicitors.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The decision handed down by the Court of Appeal on 21<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> December 2015 was, in fact, an appeal against an initial decision handed down in March 2014 following a four day hearing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Initially Gary Watts lost a High Court action as his sister successfully claimed that a Will, apparently made by their mother in 2011 leaving everything to him, was a forgery.\u00a0 The Court accepted this case having heard from both <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">parties, the Deceased\u2019s sister and a nurse who had signed as an apparent witness to the Will and two handwriting experts.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Mr Watts appealed against that decision on the basis that the Judge hearing the case, Catherine Newman QC (who was sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge) should have recused herself from the original trial.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Gary Watts averred that Deputy Judge Newman QC\u00a0should not have heard the trial on the basis that there was an appearance of bias.\u00a0 The reason for this was due to the fact that, at the time of the trial, she was acting alongside (or \u201cleading\u201d) his Opponent\u2019s Barrister, Mr Jordan Holland in a separate and unconnected matter.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Having lost the case in 2014, Judge Newman QC having found that the Will was forged, Gary Watts was ordered to pay his sister\u2019s legal costs.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He has now lost the appeal against the decision with the Court of Appeal Judge finding that \u201cto my mind it is clear that she [the Judge] behaved entirely correctly and within the disclosure that she did\u201d.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Gary Watts is now facing homelessness as a result of his actions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Judgment is a timely reminder that attempting to forge a Will can have extremely serious consequences.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It also however, highlights the fact that careful consideration must be given before embarking on any legal action (whether it being an initial claim or an appeal) without first obtaining specialist legal advice.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">T<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">he Judgment of the original decision can be found <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.5sblaw.com\/news-pdfs\/watts-v-watts---judgment.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/u><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> and the recent Court of Appeal decision can be found <\/span><u><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bailii.org\/ew\/cases\/EWCA\/Civ\/2015\/1297.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/span><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If you have any queries regarding concerns relating to Wills, their validity or are unhappy at the provisions of a Will, please contact our inheritance trust and estate disputes team on 0114 218 400 or visit <\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tayloremmet.co.uk\/\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';\"><u><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">www.tayloremmet.co.uk<\/span><\/u><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may have seen\u00a0in the news this week a\u00a0story\u00a0about a\u00a0Court of Appeal decision given in the case of Watts v Watts, which left one of the two children of Valerie Watts facing a bill for \u00a3340,000 from his sister\u2019s solicitors. The decision handed down by the Court of Appeal on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[333,355,356],"tags":[67,579,580,778,913,1457,1473],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contentious-probate","category-tayloremmet","category-wills-and-probate","tag-court-of-appeal","tag-contentious-probate","tag-contested-wills","tag-forged-wills","tag-judge-newman-qc","tag-watts-v-watts","tag-wills"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ongoing will forgery case sees appeal dismissed | Blogs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tayloremmet.co.uk\/blogs\/ongoing-will-forgery-case-sees-appeal-dismissed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ongoing will forgery case sees appeal dismissed | Blogs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You may have seen\u00a0in the news this week a\u00a0story\u00a0about a\u00a0Court of Appeal decision given in the case of Watts v Watts, which left one of the two children of Valerie Watts facing a bill for \u00a3340,000 from his sister\u2019s solicitors. 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