13 February 2024 , 17:12
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The daughter of a millionaire butcher has launched a legal battle over her father’s will, claiming he was lured into a “predatory marriage” by his carer.
Robert Harrington was 94 when he died in May 2020, just 11 months after marrying Guixiang Qin, who, at 54, was 40 years his junior. Two months before his death, Mr Harrington made a new will, leaving everything to his new wife, completely cutting out his only child, Jill Langley.
She claims that her father could not even pronounce his bride’s name, and was so frail that he was “unable to even stand for a photo on his wedding day”, Central London county court heard.
Ms Langley, 70, accuses Ms Qin of exerting undue influence on her ailing father in order to inherit his fortune. James McKean, for Ms Langley, told Recorder Robert McAllister she had come to court to overturn the will.
Robert Harrington pictured in an old photo (Champion News)Mr McKean said Mr Harrington had ended up in an “ill-maintained grave” separate to the plot where he had wished to lie alongside his wife of 66 years, Eileen, who had died in 2018. Ms Langley claims her parents had “idolised” her and shared a “close and loving relationship” with her before their deaths. Giving evidence, Ms Langley said: “There was never any doubt that I would be the sole recipient of my parents’ inheritance.”
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Guixiang Qin outside Central London County Court (Champion News)
Jill Langley claims Ms Qin exerted influence over her ailing father (Champion News)But lawyers for Ms Qin insist that father and daughter were estranged. Ms Qin also denies she was merely a carer and claims Mr Harrington proposed after they embarked on “a loving and sexual relationship”, leaving her everything because he “wanted to look after her”.
The court heard Ms Langley last saw her father at her mother’s funeral in January 2018, when he looked “very frail and vulnerable” and was “rambling”. Mr McKean said Mr Harrington had displayed “strange behaviour” since moving into his rural home in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, in 2015, “fortifying” it with CCTV cameras. Medical evidence suggested he was “most likely suffering from a paranoid delusional disorder”.
Ms Langley argues the will should be set aside on grounds of “want of testamentary capacity, want of knowledge and approval, and undue influence”.
In defence documents, Ms Qin’s barrister Richard Buston said that even before she had met Mr Harrington he had already indicated in writing that he was considering removing Ms Langley completely from the will “due to the poor relationship with the claimant and her husband”.