A teacher has won a £675,000 payout after suing her older sister and her sister’s ex-husband over claims their elderly mother’s fortune was blown on high-risk ‘spread-betting’ – and a £54,000 Porsche.
Olivia Wright told a court how her sister Emma Parfrement, 53, took control of their 84-year-old mother Angela Wright’s finances in 2017 when she became mentally fragile.
After banking £475,000 of their parent’s life savings – including the proceeds of her house sale – Ms Parfrement transferred £450,000 to her ex-husband Neil Parfrement, who claimed he could invest the cash for profit.
But special needs teacher Ms Wright claimed her former brother-in-law’s ‘investments’ were in fact ‘highly speculative’ currency spread betting – and the cash has now vanished.
Her mother died aged 86 in 2019 and Ms Wright went to court in a bid to discover the fate of her fortune and retrieve it from her sister and former brother-in-law.
Olivia Wright (pictured), a teacher, has been awarded a £675,000 payout at London’s High Court after taking legal action against her sister over the money left by their late mother
Emma Parfrement (pictured) took over 84-year-old mother Angela Wright’s finances in 2017 when she became mentally fragile, Central London County Court was told
Mr Parfrement claimed he gave back to his ex-wife £144,000, of which she spent £54,000 on a Porsche.
But Ms Parfrement denied receiving anything nor buying a car, accusing her ex of ‘wasting nearly all’ the money.
Now Judge Nigel Gerald has ordered the pair to pay back £475,000 to cover the missing money, plus interest estimated at about £200,000, after finding that because of their actions there was ‘virtually no money left in the estate’.
Central London County Court heard that Ms Parfrement took over their mum’s financial affairs in December 2017 after she was deemed to lack mental capacity and had difficulty with her short-term memory and thought processing.
Ms Wright’s barrister William Moffett said Ms Parfrement went on to hand control of almost all of the fortune to her ex-husband, a former advertising agency boss.
He said: ‘Most but not all of these misappropriated sums, in payments totalling £450,000, were then paid by Emma to Neil Parfrement – they say for him to invest at a return.
‘This intended investment was in fact Mr Parfrement engaging in currency spread betting.
‘They conspicuously fail to provide any meaningful detail of precisely what happened.’
Ms Parfrement insisted her mother was ‘competent to make decisions’ at the time and had approved the cash transfers to her son-in-law.
But Mr Moffett told the judge Ms Parfrement was holding the funds on trust for her mother, adding: ‘It was not in the deceased’s best interests that her money should be passed to Ms Parfrement’s personal accounts.
‘It is a gross dereliction of her duties of prudent management and investment of those monies to have taken them out of the management of financial professionals and paid them to her ex-husband, who apparently produced no sort of evidence that he was qualified to do anything with them and who instead was to use them for spread betting.’
He told the court: ‘The deceased was clearly not a well lady at this time – she was living in a care home and suffering mental impairment issues.’
Mr Parfrement, 52, admitted being handed money to invest but denied knowing ‘explicitly’ that it was his former mother-in-law’s, the court heard.
The feuding sisters’ mother Angela Wright (pictured) died aged 86 in 2019
Emma Parfrement and her now ex-husband Neil Parchement, pictured together on their wedding day, were ruled against after being sued by her sister Olivia Wright
He said he repaid £144,000 of the £450,000 total which he had received to his ex, from which she spent £54,000 on a Porsche.
His ex-wife, however, denied shelling out any cash on the high-performance car and claimed she channelled the investment funds to Mr Parfrement because she wanted to maximise her elderly mother’s income.
She said she was lulled into continuing with her ex-husband’s investments after he sent her account statements showing a ‘seemingly increasingly rosy balance with purported astronomical returns’ – with an ultimate balance of more than £1.16million.
She was growing suspicious by spring in 2019 but her ex was ‘evasive’ when she challenged him, Ms Parfrement claimed.
She told the judge: ‘I thought I was doing the right thing on behalf of my mother’s estate – I had no idea that the money would never be returned.’
After a day in court, the judge ruled in favour of Ms Wright and her mother’s estate, awarding summary judgment against both her sister and Mr Parfrement.
He ruled that six-figure sums had been paid by Ms Parfrement to her ex, who ‘apparently invested it in spread-betting’.
The judge added that none of this cash had gone back to the siblings’ mother or her estate, describing the fate of the money invested by Mr Parfrement as ‘pretty much a mystery’.
Mr Gerald said: ‘While Emma admits and accepts that not one penny has been repaid to her mother, it’s her position that Mr Parfrement has effectively wasted nearly all this money.’
He added of Ms Parfrement that it was ‘inconceivable’ that she could persuade the court she believed she was acting in her mother’s best interests.
‘She was saying that her 84-year-old mother was perfectly content with virtually all her estate being withdrawn and invested by Mr Parfrement on her mother’s behalf on this highly speculative form of transaction,’ he added.
‘It’s difficult to see how she could succeed in producing credible evidence to suggest that her mother was mentally competent at the time and able to understand and approve the transactions which she did.’
Neither she nor Mr Parfrement had a realistic hope of successfully defending their cases if a full trial went ahead, he found.
Emma Parfrement, seen here on her wedding day in 2004, was said to have spent £54,000 of their money inherited from her mother Angela Wright on a Porsche – though she denied this
Noting that Angela Wright’s estate is now virtually worthless, he told the court: ‘So far as I’m aware, there is virtually no money left in the estate, so Ms Wright has been funding it herself and has pretty much run out of money on what some might regard as an open-and-shut case.’
Entering judgment for Ms Wright and her mother’s estate against her sister and brother-in-law, he concluded: ‘I can see no purpose in this trial continuing and wasting all this time and money.’
The decision means the former couple are jointly and separately liable to pay £450,000, plus interest, while Ms Parfrement is liable alone for another £25,000 of her mum’s money, plus interest.
The total sum due to Ms Wright and her mother’s estate is estimated at £675,000, although the precise interest figures are yet to be confirmed in a court order.
