Can anyone explain to me why AP ended up with about half of the Bamber fortune?
At one time he said that he USUALLY kept his .22 at WHF, saying that he removed the bolt.
He then left farming, and I believe retired to Spain.
He made statements that Jeremy was a crackshot,even though Jeremy was scared of guns. In fact I think it was AP who gave Jeremy a air rifle.
All the family knew how to access WHF when apparently locked up.
The Eatons, and AP were indebted to Neville to some extent. Neville was very successful as a farmer. and very shrewd.
Jeremy was soon to receive a substantial amount from granny Speakman who was close to death,the family poisoned her mind to exclude Jeremy from her will. Who got the money?
Jeremy had to defend himself from the family, and Mugford [who should have been prosecuted as an acsessery.
Yes I had wondered about this myself and after checking a couple of the books written on the White House Farm murders have come up with this:
Nevill had two sisters, (who as it happened both predeceased him but I digress). They were Audrey Bamber, who married Allied Mosquito ace Reginald Pargeter, and Diana, who married retired air commodore Ernest Leslie Howard-Williams. Anthony and Jackie were the children of Audrey and therefore Nevill's nephew and niece. Diana died childless.
As far as June was concerned she had an elder sister Pamela, and their parents were Leslie and Mabel Speakman(nee Bunting), both wealthy Essex landowners. As things stood before the murders Nevill had left his estate to Jeremy on condition that he was still farming at the time of his death. If June predeceased him then his estate would be split between Jeremy and Sheila, with an opportunity for Jeremy to buy Sheila out of the Farm. June's will gave Sheila the freehold ownership of the caravan site with Jeremy having shares in it, but the residue would pass to Jeremy when he reached 25 years of age.
Of course what neither Nevill nor June could have envisaged was not only the death of both of them on the same morning but also the death of Sheila and the twins on the same day(there was a rumour that June was going to change her will in favour of the Church, then the twins but at the time of death this plan had not been followed through with). So legally speaking the order of seniority kicked in (ngb1066 and anglolawyer I'm sure will correct me here if I have strayed) and because June was older than her husband by a few days it was deemed that her wishes took precedence. Had Jeremy walked free from court he would therefore have inherited the combined estate of his parents, worth £436,000 in 1985 and well over £1.5 million today.
Here is where Anthony Pargeter comes in. As things stood pre-murders he was legally entitled to nothing(hence his remark from his villa in Ibiza about inheriting by default), but because Pamela Boutflour was now June's next of kin she stood to inherit the lot. I think the Boutflours must have taken legal advice because ultimately Pamela signed over Nevill's estate to Anthony and Jackie(possibly to avoid years of legal wrangling) but kept June's, which is why Anthony came to inherit from his uncle's estate.
