Sam Jones first met David Turner while dishing him up roadside snacks at his mobile catering unit in Chertsey, Surrey (Picture: Champion News)
A burger bar chef will be allowed to keep the £5million fortune left to him by an eccentric businessman after the millionaire’s estranged sister failed to have his will struck out.
Sam Jones first met David Turner while dishing him up roadside snacks at his mobile catering unit in Chertsey, Surrey, London’s High Court was told.
The unlikely pals bonded over a mutual love of guitar and classic cars and remained friends for some 17 years before Mr Turner’s death from an aggressive brain tumour in 2017.
He treated Mr Jones ‘like a son’, the court heard, but decided to cut his sister out of his will completely, branding her a ‘conniving b***h’.
In a new testament drawn up in 2013, he left everything to Mr Jones and other close friends.
Mr Turner ran a skip hire business at Woodside Farm in Bittams Lane, Chertsey, which has been in his family for 70 years.
He also had a half share in a 14-acre plot near the M25, which if granted planning permission for development could have a price tag of up to £10million and left both to Mr Jones.
That 2013 will ended up being challenged in court by his sister, because a copy of his original testament has never been found.
Lawyers for Mrs Cano, who lives in Spain, argued that it couldn’t be proved that her brother had not destroyed his original will after changing his mind about who he wanted to inherit his fortune.
She asked the judge to nullify the 2013 will, which would have left her free to inherit under the laws of intestacy, because no other will existed, and she stood in line as next of kin.
But the judge, Master Matthew Marsh, ruled against Mrs Cano at the High Court, leaving Mr Jones to inherit his friend’s fortune.
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During the trial, Mr Jones’s barrister Rose Fetherstonhaugh said there was ample evidence that Mr Turner wanted his longtime pal to inherit his wealth.
She pointed out that Mr Jones cared for him in his final months and organised both his funeral and his wake.
Not only was his sister excluded from benefiting under his 2013 will, she told the judge, but Mr Turner was adamant that she shouldn’t get a penny.
Mr Turner was described by the judge as a ‘highly gregarious’ character with a passion for shooting, classic cars and music, who had an ‘open house’ policy at his ramshackle farmhouse home, socialising with a close group of friends in an outbuilding they ‘perhaps rather grandly called the music room’.
Ms Fetherstonhaugh told the court: ‘Mr Turner, who had no children of his own, treated Mr Jones like a son and was very close to his family. Mr Jones looked to him as a father figure, and he was a grandfather figure to Mr Jones’ children.
‘Mr Turner grew closer and closer to Mr Jones, and Mr Jones would be around the deceased regularly and up at the farm in the evenings.
‘By contrast, Mr Turner had a very poor relationship with his sister. This was well known amongst the deceased’s friends; for example, one friend’s evidence is that he “never heard Mr Turner say a good word about Mrs Cano – he spoke in language that I wouldn’t repeat… he did not like her and did not want to talk about her”.’
The siblings had been estranged for nearly a decade, the barrister said, and there was evidence Mr Turner had a grievance against his sister after she sold her half share in the 14-acre roadside plot to a property development company.
Ms Fetherstonhaugh also highlighted a document recording his instructions around the time of his will, in which he stated that neither his sister nor his ex-partner should have ‘any beneficial interest in my money, property or chattels – the reason for this is the way I have been treated by two conniving b***hes’.
The late David Turner’s Woodside Farm in Chertsey, which was centre of inheritance row between his friend Sam Jones and sister Linda Cano (Picture: Paul Keogh)
Mrs Cano accepted she had had little contact with her brother since 2008, but claimed he had a habit of making and changing his will.
However, Mr Jones insisted his friend had consistently shown he wanted him to inherit most of his fortune, even assembling his band of pals together after making his 2013 will to ‘announce to his friends that Mr Jones was to be treated as the owner of the farm’.
Finding in favour of Mr Jones, the judge concluded: ‘It’s clear from the evidence that Mr Turner expressed a strong dislike for his sister.
‘His intentions were clear in 2013 that he wanted Mr Jones to benefit as his friend and that he didn’t want any part of his estate to go to Mrs Cano.
‘There’s no evidence of any kind to suggest that Mr Turner’s intentions changed from the date he made his will in 2013, and he remained estranged from his sister.
‘There is clear, unchallenged evidence that Mr Jones was a daily visitor to the farm. Mr Jones and others helped care for Mr Turner when his illness became debilitating shortly before his death, showing the strong bond and connections between them.
‘There’s no evidence that Mr Turner attempted to make a new will.’
The judge’s ruling means that the 2013 will stand in favour of Mr Jones.
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David Turner treated Sam Jones (pictured) ‘like a son’, but decided to cut his sister out of his will completely.
