Table tennis coach fights for share of £2m fortune his aunt left to neighbour

Head-to-head: Derek Seager, left, and James De Jong who cared for his aunt
Champion News

An award-winning table tennis coach is locked in a £2 million inheritance fight after his aunt left her fortune to a neighbour.

Derek Seager and his brother Ian claim that James De Jong pressured their aunt, Ada Richards, into leaving him everything in her will by “exploiting” his position to isolate her from friends and family.

Mrs Richards, a widow, wrote the will in 2010, a year before she died aged 92, leaving her fortune, including a £1.5 million home in Highgate, to Mr De Jong who had been her primary carer in her last years.

The Seager brothers believe they should receive the entire inheritance as Mrs Richards’s next of kin, but Mr De Jong insists the widow had been estranged from her nephews since the Fifties and “despised” their side of the family.

He argues the 2010 will is valid, and says the Seager brothers launched their claim only after being tracked down by heir hunters following Mrs Richards’s death.

Central London county court heard Mr De Jong, 74, had lived in the same street as Mrs Richards and her husband James, a hairdresser, since the Seventies. He started playing a major role in her life when she was widowed in 1992, and he was her primary carer after she broke her hip in 2007.

Ada Richards' former home in Archway Road
Champion News

Mr Seager, 73, a coach with the Aldershot and District Table Tennis League who was handed a national award by Table Tennis England for his work, has applied with his brother to the court for a ruling that the 2010 will is invalid.

The brothers’ barrister Gabriel Fadipe argued Mrs Richards was “afraid” of her neighbour, claiming: “Mr De Jong told Mrs Richards there was no one else who could look after her if he did not, and that he would not do so if she did not leave her estate to him.”

But facing the claim in court, Mr De Jong said: “That never crossed my mind. My pledge was to care for her until her passing.”

Mr Fadipe told the court the neighbour was twice accused of abusive behaviour towards Mrs Richards, allegedly hitting her with a rolled-up newspaper and pouring a cup of water over her. He claimed Mrs Richards made it clear she did not want to see Mr De Jong when she was transferred to a care home in 2010.

But Mr De Jong’s barrister Julian Reed told the court he had been charged but acquitted of assault in March 2011, following an allegation by another neighbour, and he denied either incident took place.

“One thing I know for certain was that when Ada was in pain she would say strange things,” Mr De Jong told the court.

Mr De Jong denied there was any impropriety in the drawing up of the will.

Judge Nicholas Parfitt will issue a ruling on the case at a later date.

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