Inheritance Wars: The Mother Who Believed Her Son Tried to Murder His Brother

Peggy Dalton believed one of her sons had tried to murder the other.

She also believed he had stolen £100,000 from her.

Those allegations were extraordinary. They were also central to the decision she made about who should inherit her estate.

In November 2020, aged 93 and suffering from dementia, Peggy made a new will. It was a radical departure from the will she had made two years earlier.

Her son Richard was cut out. Almost all of the estate, after modest legacies to grandchildren, was left to her other son Robert and Robert’s wife Carly.

Four months later Peggy died. Richard challenged the will. The High Court ultimately concluded that the 2020 will could not stand.

What happens when the reasons for disinheriting a child are themselves false?

The family

Peggy Dalton had four children: Richard, Robert, David and Christine.

Her husband William had suffered serious brain injury in a road accident and Peggy cared for him for many years until his death in 2008. She later endured the deaths of two of her children — Christine in 2015 and David in 2018.

By 2018, her surviving family included her sons Richard and Robert and her grandson Vincent.

Peggy’s estate was reported as being worth approximately £600,000. Its principal asset was her home in South Godstone, Surrey.

The 2018 will

In 2018 Peggy made a will under which the bulk of her estate was to be shared between Richard, Robert and her grandson Vincent. The broad result was an approximately three-way division.

There was nothing unusual about Richard’s position under that will. He was one of the principal beneficiaries.

Then the family circumstances changed.

Robert and Carly move in

During 2020 Robert and his wife Carly moved into Peggy’s home. A power of attorney was also put in place under which Robert became involved in Peggy’s financial affairs.

Evidence before the court concerned increasing isolation from wider family members and health or social-care professionals.

This period became highly significant. The later will was made only months after Robert and Carly had moved into the property.

The allegations against Richard

When Peggy spoke to the will writer, she gave remarkable reasons for excluding Richard. She said, in substance, that Richard had stolen £100,000 from her and that he had tried to murder Robert.

The alleged murder attempt was said to have arisen after Robert confronted Richard. But the court later found that Peggy’s belief that Richard had attempted to kill his brother had “no basis in reality”.

That finding mattered enormously.

Where did the belief come from?

The court considered two possibilities. Either Peggy had independently reached a false belief because of her deteriorating mental condition. Or she had been given false information by Robert or Carly.

Either way, the belief cast serious doubt on Peggy’s ability properly to understand the circumstances in which she was changing her will.

This was not a peripheral delusion. It went directly to why she was cutting Richard out.

The 2020 will

In November 2020 Peggy executed a new will. Its effect was dramatically different from the 2018 will.

Richard received nothing. Six grandchildren were reportedly given legacies of £10,000 each. The substantial residue was left to Robert and Carly.

It was a major shift in testamentary intention. And it occurred only four months before Peggy’s death.

Dementia

Peggy’s mental condition was central to the challenge.

Less than a month after the will was made she was hospitalised. By February 2021 she was in a care home and was described as having “quite advanced” dementia.

The court considered it improbable that her condition had deteriorated from testamentary competence to advanced dementia within such a short period without significant impairment already existing at the time of the will.

The question was therefore not simply whether Peggy had dementia. It was whether, in November 2020, she retained the capacity necessary to make the testamentary decision she was making.

This is not merely a criticism of paperwork. In cases involving vulnerability, dependency and a radical late-life change of will, the professional process may later become crucial evidence.

Four grounds of failure

The findings

The 2020 will failed because of:

1. 1

   Lack of proper execution

   The formal requirements for making a valid will were not satisfied.

2. 2

   Lack of testamentary capacity

   Peggy did not have the mental capacity required to make the testamentary decision she was making.

3. 3

   Want of knowledge and approval

   It was not established that she knew and approved the contents of the document she signed.

4. 4

   Undue influence

   The court found that the will reflected the wishes of others rather than her own independent decision.

These are distinct legal concepts with different tests and different evidence. They should not be merged together.

Undue influence

This is where the Dalton dispute differs importantly from Bond v Webster.

In Bond, undue influence was not pursued at trial. In Dalton, the court found that Robert and Carly had exercised undue influence over Peggy.

The court concluded that, because of her vulnerability and dependence, the later will represented their wishes, not hers.

That is the central concern behind testamentary undue influence. The court is not asking whether relatives were merely persuasive, forceful or involved. The question is whether the testator’s own volition was overborne so that the resulting will was not truly their independent act.

Read Inheritance Wars No. 10 — Bond v Webster

The Banks v Goodfellow connection

Read: The Man Who Saw Devils — Banks v Goodfellow

When false beliefs drive disinheritance

The Dalton dispute also echoes Clitheroe v Bond.

In both cases, beliefs about a child formed part of the reason for excluding that child from the estate. The difficult legal question is whether those beliefs are simply mistaken, strongly held opinions — or manifestations of mental disorder which affect testamentary capacity.

Read: Clitheroe v Bond

The court’s decision

Master Katherine McQuail held that the 2020 will was invalid. The court confirmed the validity of Peggy’s earlier 2018 will.

That restored Richard to the position he had held before the later will. His share was reported to be approximately £200,000 — roughly one-third of an estate reported as worth approximately £600,000.

Simplified visual explainer

The Dalton timeline

1. 1

   2018 — Will broadly divides estate between Richard, Robert and Vincent

2. 2

   Early 2020 — Robert and Carly move into Peggy’s home

3. 3

   November 2020 — New will excludes Richard

4. 4

   February 2021 — Peggy in care with advanced dementia

5. 5

   March 2021 — Peggy dies

6. 6

   May 2026 — High Court rejects the later will

7. 7

   The 2018 will is restored

Dates and figures are taken from contemporary reports of the decision.

The costs

And then came the financial sting.

Robert and Carly were ordered to pay Richard’s costs. Contemporary reports put the legal bill at approximately £190,000. That is a reported and estimated costs liability rather than a formally assessed figure.

That figure was sufficient potentially to consume most or all of Robert’s own entitlement under the reinstated will.

This is a recurring theme in inheritance litigation.

See also our analysis of why inheritance disputes are rising.

The absent witness — again

Peggy could not explain herself.

She could not tell the court whether she really believed Richard had stolen £100,000. She could not explain where the alleged murder story had come from. She could not say whether Robert and Carly had told her these things. She could not explain whether she genuinely wanted to disinherit Richard.

The court was left to reconstruct her intentions from:

• medical evidence;
• family evidence;
• the will-writing file;
• events surrounding her isolation; and
• the extraordinary accusations recorded at the time.

Once again, everybody could speak except the person whose will was being fought over.

The same difficulty runs through Rea v Rea and Howe v Howe.

Could mediation have resolved it?

Possibly. But this is one of the harder cases.

The allegations were serious. Richard was not simply arguing that the 2020 will was unfair. He said the will was not Peggy’s genuine independent testamentary act.

There were allegations of dementia; false information; isolation; coercion; and undue influence. Sometimes allegations of that nature require judicial determination.

But the commercial and family questions remained.

• What was the litigation risk?
• What if the 2020 will failed completely?
• What if the earlier will was restored?
• How reliable was the will-writing process?
• What would medical evidence show?
• How would the accusations about Richard survive scrutiny?
• And how much of a £600,000 estate should sensibly be exposed to litigation costs?

The lesson from the Dalton dispute

The case is a powerful warning about radical late-life will changes. Particularly where:

• the testator is elderly or vulnerable;
• there is diagnosed or suspected dementia;
• one beneficiary has become heavily involved in the testator’s life;
• another beneficiary is excluded;
• the reasons for exclusion are dramatic or objectively questionable; and
• the proposed beneficiaries are involved in arranging the new will.

None of those factors automatically invalidates a will. Together, however, they demand exceptional care.

Independent instructions. Independent advice. Proper consideration of capacity. A clear contemporaneous record. And, where appropriate, medical assessment.

Because after death, the evidence may be all that is left.

When a false belief becomes an inheritance war

Peggy Dalton’s case began with an allegation. One son had supposedly tried to murder the other. The allegation had no basis in reality.

But by the time Peggy made her final will, it had become part of the reason why one child was excluded from her estate.

The High Court ultimately decided that the will could not stand. The earlier 2018 will was restored. Richard recovered his share.

But the family also acquired something nobody had intended to inherit: a major High Court dispute and a reported legal costs bill approaching £190,000.

That is the recurring paradox of inheritance litigation. The question may begin as “what did Mum really want?” But if the dispute runs far enough, another question can become equally important:

“How much of what she left are we prepared to spend finding out?”

A dispute about a late-life will?

ProMediate Inheritance, Probate & Trusts provides specialist mediation for disputes involving testamentary capacity, undue influence, knowledge and approval, contested wills, executors and beneficiaries.

Mediation can take place before proceedings or at any stage of contentious probate litigation.

Discuss a Mediation · Meet Our Mediators

More from Inheritance Wars

• Banks v Goodfellow — the man who saw devils
• Clitheroe v Bond — the disinherited daughter
• Bond v Webster — the tyre millionaire
• Rea v Rea — the daughter who cared for her mother
• Howe v Howe — the daughter deliberately cut out

Browse the whole series on the Inheritance Wars hub.

This article provides general commentary on a High Court contested-will decision concerning the estate of Peggy Dalton, reported in May 2026. It does not constitute legal advice. No neutral citation should be added unless a reliable published judgment is subsequently identified.