Disinherited nephew accused of threatening lawyers over £200,000 charity inheritance

A disinherited nephew could face prison over claims he threatened to beat up lawyers dealing with his late aunt’s estate after she left her £200,000 fortune to charity.

IT expert Sean Stimson has been locked in a bitter row over the will of Helen Smith since she died in 2021, leaving her estate to the RSPCA and other good causes.

Mr Stimson claims she had always intended her Swindon home - which formed the majority of her fortune - to stay in the family, but instead it went to the charities under a 2016 will.

He is still disputing the will, but has now been dragged to court by the charities’ lawyers, Foot Anstey LLP, accused of a campaign of ’vitriolic’ threats and abuse against them and their employees.

The nephew is accused of writing to the law firm, addressing them as ’w******’ and ’b*******’ and threatening to ’beat the s***’ out of them if his aunt’s house was not returned to him.

The firm says the ’abuse’ put him in contempt of court for breaching a previous court order - banning Mr Stimson from such conduct - which settled a Foot Anstey harassment claim against him last year.

But Mr Stimson is fighting the contempt application, which could see him jailed for up to two years, denying that he was behind the letter.

Although he admits sending an email to say his case would be ’defended with force,’ he says that was not intended as a threat of violence and that he had nothing to do with the ’w******’ letter.

Mr Stimson was previously jailed for breaching a restraining order after he waged a hate campaign against pop singer Robbie Williams in 2017.

The convicted stalker and his brother, Wayne, 46, were barred from contacting the superstar’s aides after arguing Williams had stolen their ideas for his iconic Millennium video.

They trolled Robbie’s record label along with a solicitors firm they thought represented the star with dozens of nuisance phone calls, screaming swearwords and whistling at baffled staff. 

The £200,000 home in Cloudberry Road, Swindon is at the core of the dispute between Sean Stimson and legal firm Foot Anstey, which is dealing with the estate

The law firm has accused Mr Stimson of a campaign of ’vitriolic’ threats and abuse against them and their employees

Now in his latest court involvement, Mr Stimson has disputed his aunt’s 2016 will on the grounds she lacked sufficient mental capacity and understanding. 

He claims that another later will of 2020 set out her true wishes about her £200,000 home in Cloudberry Road, Swindon.

In a previous judgment on the dispute, High Court judge Mrs Justice Hill set out the background to the row.

’His aunt left a will made in 2016 which made provision for three animal charities and a hospice to recover under her estate,’ she said.

’It made no provision for Mr Stimson and this led to a dispute between him and Foot Anstey, who are the administrators of the estate, instructed by the beneficiary charities.’

But Mrs Justice Hill said that, on the evidence she had seen, he had not been able to ’substantiate these assertions’ and since then probate has been granted to the charities involved.

He has continued to dispute the validity of the will, but ended up in court after Foot Anstey accused him of a campaign of harassment against them amid the will row.

He was accused of threatening to turn up at the firm’s and charities’ offices, of threatening to spread malware in their IT systems, and of ’making obscene phone calls to female employees.’

Mr Stimson, who flatly denied making any obscene phone calls, ended up settling the harassment claim with Foot Anstey on the basis of a series of undertakings hammered out and recorded in a court order in January 2025.

Those undertakings permitted him to contact the firm on ’bona fide’ issues relating to his aunt’s estate, but barred him from any communication ’that is irrelevant to the legacy matter of these proceedings - or that is abusive or threatening or otherwise involves harassment.’

Back in court this week, Foot Anstey’s barrister, Kate Wilson, accused him of breaching the terms of the undertaking with communications sent in June and September last year.

An email sent in June referred to an appeal he was bringing in relation to his aunt’s will and concluded: ’My aunt’s last wishes were very clear, and they will not be ignored and if necessary defended by force’.

’Then in September, his threatening conduct became more serious, when he made another threat of violence towards Foot Anstey’s staff if they did not "return" his aunt’s house to him,’ claimed the barrister.

The letter was ’abusively addressed’ to ’Dear Foot Anstey W******’ and read: ’I am giving you one week to return my aunt’s house and bury her properly.

’If not I will come and beat the s*** out of all of you including the b******. I have had enough of your c*** and the jails are full so I will just keep coming for you until you comply or are permanently hospitalised.’

Ms Wilson said the ’b******’ reference was especially troubling because the staff members who had worked on the charity will dispute were women.

The letter was a ’clear breach of the undertakings’ and contained a ’direct threat’, the barrister argued, adding: ’The vitriolic nature of that abuse added to the intensity of the threats of violence’.

She asked the judge, Mr Justice Griffiths, to find Mr Stimson in contempt of court for breaching the undertakings, with the potential then for a prison sentence.

But Daniel Mullin, barrister for Mr Stimson, denied the ’w******’ letter had anything to do with his client, pointing out that the postmark was nowhere near his address.

’The claimants are totally incapable of proving to the relevant standard who sent the letter. The evidence relied upon by Foot Anstey is wholly insufficient,’ he continued.

’It is accepted that the letter has the defendant’s typed name on the bottom and referred to the returning of ’an aunt’s house’. This is not direct evidence.

’Fingerprints or DNA on the letter would not be considered direct evidence, so it cannot be the case that a simple typed signature is direct evidence.’

On the matter of the June email, he said the terms had been misunderstood and contained no underlying threat of violence, but was merely him stating his intention to pursue his case about the will.

’The language in the email is consistent with the defendant intending to convey that he would defend his position fully and to the limit of his ability - ’with force’ being synonymous, for example, with robustly,’ he told the judge.

After three hours of evidence and submissions from both barristers, the judge reserved his decision in the case, to be given at a later date.

If Mr Stimson is found in contempt of court, he could be jailed for up to two years or receive an unlimited fine.

The IT expert previously served time in prison after breaching a restraining order imposed by the High Court in 2001 over their stalking of pop singer Robbie Williams.

He and his brother Wayne were banned from contacting EMI Records, the singer’s business IE: Music and solicitors Harbottle and Lewis, who they believed represented Mr Williams.

They believed the singer had nabbed their idea for a Britpop musical and used it for his hit record Millennium’s James Bond-themed video.

Mr Stimson breached the order by phoning Harbottle and Lewis nine times between 21 August and 9 September 2015, including four calls in a single day. 

Before being jailed, the court heard Stimson breached the restraining order four times - in 2003, 2010, 2013 going into 2014, and again in 2015.