HomeNewsBachelor sues sister over inheritance of €650,000 farm

Bachelor sues sister over inheritance of €650,000 farm

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circuitcourtAndrew Carey
andrew@limerickpost.ie
A COUNTY Limerick bachelor has sued his sister over claims he was to be left the entirety of a farm worth €650,000. It was the promise he grew up with from his father that he would always be “the future farmer”.
The eldest of a family of eleven, 67-year-old Richard English started proceedings and sued his sister over the inheritance of a €650,000 farm amid claims he was beaten out of the farm and left homeless and sleeping rough in his car, a court has heard.
In a bitter row that erupted before Judge Karen Fergus at Limerick Circuit Court, the Limerick bachelor and farmer said that he was beaten and driven out the near 60-acre family homestead by his brothers and family despite never missing a day on the farm until his father’s death in 1997.
William (Billy Joe) English died without leaving a last will and testament and the family homestead of Boherdota House, Oola and its farmlands was left to his wife and children.
Mother of 11, Mary Catherine English died in 2011 and left the entirety of the family estate to her eldest daughter Mary Margaret English, a single woman who works for the HSE in Limerick.
In is evidence, which was often heated and emotional, Richard English told the court that he never missed a day on the farm while he was growing up and that his father had taken him out of school when he was just 14 to “work the farm”.
Mr English said that he always understood that this happened because he was to be left the farm when his parents “passed on”.
“My father always said to me ‘you’re working for yourself now, you will be the future farmer'” and asked if anyone witnessed these promises, Mr English said “I witnessed them myself, that’s exactly how it happened”.
Mr English told his barrister Donal O’Rourke BL, that the rest of his siblings all continued on with their education and that most moved out of the family home and dairy farm outside Oola, gained employment and some married starting their own families.
“Not a day was missed in 35 years since I left school. I milked cows morning and evening by hand before I brought it to the creamery”, Mr English told the court.
“It’s a shame that we are here today and the Treaty Stone just yards away. I was promised that farm and now they’ve left me homeless.
“What I suffered there in the last few years was unbelievable”.
The 67-year-old was referring to what he claimed was the abuse he had allegedly suffered at the hands of some of his siblings following the death of his father in 1997 and his mother in 2011.
Before breaking down in his evidence, Mr English described how he was in “treatment in a home” during 2014.
“I spent ten weeks in a home last year after what I suffered. I was beaten and driven out of my own farm by my brothers and sisters – they were vicious, like a pack of animals” claimed the 67-year-old bachelor.
He described being locked in a shed where he had to fend for himself, being beaten with cattle sticks “to within an inch of my life” and having to protest on the land for what he believed was rightfully his.
Evidence of gardai and ambulance personnel having to attend the farm was also heard and disputed between the parties, as were allegations that Dairygold milk truck drivers were threatened when they came to collect milk during a time of the family row in 2013.
Richard English said that he reinvested any extra money he got from contracting work back into the farm on the belief that it was eventually going to be signed over to him.
The court heard that following the death of Willie Joe English in 1997, nine of the 11 English children; Tom (65), Mary Margaret (63), Willie (63), Pat (61), Ann (60), John (58), Breda (57), Stephen (55) and Kate (54) all waived their inheritance rights to a 1/33 share of their father’s estate after he died without leaving a will and signed everything over to their mother Mary Catherine English.
However, the court heard that eldest son Richard only signed his share over following what he claims were threats made by some of his family.
In a robust series of exchanges before the court, defence counsel, Emmett O’Brien, for the Estate, challenged the veracity of Richard English’s claims and put it to him that the reason he wasn’t at the family farm “for years” was because he was a “busy enough man otherwise” with another farm and stock that he had rented near Oola.
Denying that the rented farm was a success, Mr English accepted that he got into “a spot of bother with the land” but that he had to “sleep in a motor car for three nights, in my wellington boots with a foot of water inside them and no stockings. That’s not success. I was being beaten and told I couldn’t stay at home anytime I went there. I’m homeless now.”
Mr O’Brien further put it to Mr English that his sisters and brothers would give evidence that he attacked them once with a pitchfork and that his father never made any promise to leave him the land.
“It’s lies, they’re telling lies and they’re liars”, Mr English retorted vehemently. They never worked there while he was alive, they had no interest at home only dragging around in new motor cars is all they were good for. My brothers and sister wouldn’t know what a cows teat is,” he claimed.
Disputing this on behalf of the English estate, Mr O’Brien put it to Richard English that in fact his brother John was working the farm and had done so for many years.
“He’s there only because they drove me out. They’re vicious people ganging up on a elderly bachelor like me”.
As Mr O’Brien outlined the evidence that would be given by now legal owner Mary Margaret English, Mr English again robustly denied he was wrong and claimed that the “bullies” were “telling lies again”.
The defence barrister put it to Mr English that he was a “blaggard” after evidence was given that he arrived into the kitchen one evening “shouting and roaring and ranting telling everyone to get out that it was your farm and that the gardai had to be called to restore peace.
Denying this, the 67-year-old bachelor, who was incensed in the witness box, said claimed “my sister fed all the gardai sausages from 8 till 12 that evening just because my brother Willie was a prison officer”.
Mr English further denied that he threatened his sister Mary Margaret by saying to her “I will stab you, I will kill you, I will go to a solicitor” over the farm.
In his evidence to the court on behalf of the plantiff, father of two Mr Seamus English, told the court that he always thought his eldest brother Richard was to be left the farm.
Outlining his evidence before Judge Fergus, Seamus English echoed the sentiments that his brother Richard  “was to be the future farmer – that’s the way father wanted it”.
Seamus who is the second eldest of the 11 children with a 500 acre farm along with his two sons adjacent Boherdota, Oola in County Limerick, said that he was the only one that did not waiver his inheritance right and refused to sign over his share to his mother when his father died over as he had fears that the family farm would not be left to Richard.
The late Mary Catherine English became the legal owner  anyway and Seamus English said that he was “shocked” that this could happen.
He said that he took Richard in and gave him a home after he was “forced out of the home place”.
During cross examination, Seamus English denied that he was an “intermeddler” or a land grabber after Mr O’Brien put it to him that his farm was “conveniently” very close to the disputed homestead in Boherdota and denied being involved in the situation in a “cloaked fashion”.
In her defence, the eldest daughter of the 11, Mary Margaret English said that she has lived at the six bedroom home all her life and that they are the third generation of farmers on the once dairy farm.
Ms English said that in the early 90s she took over running the administrative side of the farm to help her father and after he died she continued in this role and still does today.
She further told the court that she was never aware of any promise made by her father or mother that Richard was to be left the farm.
The court heard that the dairy cows at the farm had to be sold as the dispute could not be resolved.
Denying that she or any of her siblings ever drove Richard out of the farm, Ms English said that “all I ever did was try to make him fell as welcome as possible but he chose to walk out.”
Ms English accepted that she brought her mother to the family solicitor to make a will six weeks after her father’s death but denied that she knew its contents and that she was to be the sole benefactor.
However Ms English said that she could accept that her brother Richard could be aggrieved at not getting anything in the will “even after all his earlier work”.
As the third day of evidence was to resume, Judge Fergus said that she had a number of questions arising out of reading the book of discovery documents in the case and that she wanted to recall and put them to Mary Margaret English.
A brief adjournment was granted and upon resuming, the court heard that “there was white smoke” and that there was an agreed settlement reached between the parties.
The case was struck out.

 

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