Dave Allen leaves £3m in his will... but nothing to his adopted daughter

13 April 2012

In life they never saw eye to eye. Now Dave Allen's adopted daughter has been excluded from the Irish entertainer's £3million will.

Christina Pette, adopted when she was nine by the comedian and his first wife Judith, is the only family member to be left out - although her two daughters have been left £10,000 each.

Christina, 43, says she is devastated by the snub, which she describes as 'the final insult'.

Allen, best-known for his television appearances perched on a stool, whiskey and cigarette in hand, never talked in public about Christina. And the pair had not spoken since she was 18 when, she says, she was forced to leave the Allen family home.

When the star died in March 2005, Christina says she half expected to be left out of the will. Speaking from the small two-bedroom flat in North London where she now lives on welfare benefits with Bianca, 15, and Jessica, 13, she said: "I had a feeling he would leave me nothing but it still hurts.

"It's not the money I care about, but the fact that I meant nothing to him. It's the final insult in what has always been a difficult relationship."

However, friends of the Allens have described Christina as a troubled woman whose erratic behaviour and demands for money were a constant strain.

She had been adopted at birth by wealthy Englishwoman Barbara Pette, with whom she lived until Ms Pette died of cancer in 1972. Then Judith Allen - an old friend who was at drama school with Ms Pette - stepped in.

Christina says Dave always treated her differently from his other children, Jane and Edward, and his stepson Jonathan. He sent them to different boarding schools, then when she was 18 he booked her on to a course at Leith's Cookery School in London and put her into a rented flat, for which he paid 'the first couple of months'.

She says: "When his other children turned 18 he bought them a house. They have wanted for nothing and have had a privileged upbringing. All I want is fairness."

She has admitted she went off the rails. In an interview a year ago, she said: "I left the course and went into rapid decline. I lived in a bedsit and lost touch with the Allens, apart from Jane. Everyone disowned me."

The bulk of Allen's fortune was split between his second wife Karin, who inherited £1.5million, and Jane and Edward, who were left just over £750,000 each. He also left £25,000 to Jonathan, and £12,500 to each of Jonathan's children.

Christina - who also says she has still not seen the money the comic left her daughters and is seeking legal advice - claims she finds the snub particularly difficult because Allen failed to pass on an £80,000 inheritance left to her by her adopted mother.

She said: "When my mother died David used the estate she left me to bring me up. She left £80,000, which I would have inherited when I was 21 but it was all gone. I am bitter about that."

However, in a protracted legal dispute, Allen's solicitors said the matter had been resolved as the star had used the money for her upkeep in her youth and paid her a settlement.

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