Earl’s ‘rebel’ daughter Lady Tara Wellesley fights family for bigger slice of his £1.3m fortune

Inheritance battle: Lady Tara Wellesley

The daughter of an earl who claims she was forced out of her aristocratic family and left in “absolute poverty” is demanding a larger slice of her late father’s £1.3 million estate, the High Court was told.

Lady Tara Wellesley, 56, is locked in a legal fight with her relatives, claiming she relies on benefits after being left only £20,000 in her father’s will when he died in June 2016.

The aspiring artist insists she was forced out of the family at a young age by her father’s second wife, and says the financial settlement is now subjecting her to “cruel and unusual punishment”.

Lady Tara is seeking £400,000 to provide for her and her disabled son, help fund a career in fine art, and so she can buy her own council house.

The late earl's widow Carola Marion Wellesley

But the late earl’s widow Carola, 75, his four step-daughters Heidi, Hilary, Sarah and Johnna, and his son and heir Graham Wellesley, the 8th Earl of Cowley, 53, are fighting the claim, arguing Lady Tara was a teenage rebel who rejected her father’s support as she turned to drink and drugs.

The family, descendants of the brother of the Duke of Wellington, claim Garret Wellesley, 7th Earl of Cowley, cut himself off from his wayward daughter due to the distress.

Lady Tara, his eldest child, told the court yesterday she had not seen her father for at least 30 years prior to his death at the age of 81.

“I did try and get in touch with him, I would hope he was thinking of me,” she said.

The earl's son and heir Graham Wellesley

She claims to have been forced out of the family home by her step-mother Isabelle, who treated her as “excess baggage”, and eventually she had to go into care.

She said the earl’s third and fourth wives also disliked her, and accused her brother of spreading lies in a bid to thwart any reconciliation with her father.

Constance McDonnell, for the family, accused Lady Tara of telling her father in 1987 that she “hated the aristocratic life that he and the rest of the family lived and their superior attitude, and you wanted nothing more to do with that”.

Lady Tara replied: “I can’t recall saying anything like that”, and when pressed that she had rejected the aristocratic life, she said: “I didn’t have an aristocratic life — I was living in absolute poverty.”

She told the court she had worked for Selfridges, Waitrose and Harrods, but has been held back from jobs because of her ADHD diagnosis.

Lady Tara gained a degree in fine art from Middlesex University in 2010 and volunteers once a week at the Tate Gallery.

She has been trying to establish herself as an artist but needs financial support to make it a success, she said.

The family argue the late earl, a Tory peer, and his third wife Paige made repeated efforts to “get through” to her when she was younger, supporting a doomed wooden toys business, encouraging her to take educational courses and offering financial support.

Ms McDonnell suggested to Lady Tara: “Your behaviour, drinking and taking drugs late at night, treating the house as a hotel, wore your father and Paige down.”

Lady Tara insisted her father was unaware of any excessive drinking or drug use. The hearing in front of Deputy Master of the Chancery Division John Linwood continues.

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