Cindylee Cockell v Natalie Fong Cockell & Anor

Master Bowles (sitting in retirement) :

1. The Claimant, Cindylee Cockell (Ms Cockell), is the daughter of Dennis Cockell (Mr Cockell), who died on 14 October 2022, aged 73. She is an Australian citizen, living in Melbourne and born on 11 September 1967. At the date of trial she was 57 years of age. She applies for reasonable financial provision for her maintenance out of the estate of Mr Cockell, pursuant to section 1 (1) (c) of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants ) Act 1975 ( the 1975 Act ).

2. At the date of his death, Mr Cockell had been married to the Second Defendant, Fong Yuet Cockell (Mrs Cockell), for forty years, their marriage having taken place on 12 July 1982. Prior to their marriage they had lived together, in a relationship, for a further seven years . Mrs Cockell is 65 years of age, having been born in December 1959, She and Mr Cockell had five children: Denver, Natalie, Selina Louisa and Dan. Natalie is the Second Defendant, in her capacity as executor of her father’s estate. She gave evidence as to the estate and as to her mother’s financial circumstances, following and since the death of Mr Cockell. She was a palpably honest and reliable witness and her evidence has been of great assistance to the court.

3. Ms Cockell is the daughter of Mr Cockell by a previous relationship. She was born in Australia, in Victoria, when Mr Cockell was 19 years old and when her mother, Kathleen McLean was 16 years old. Mr Cockell had been born in the United Kingdom and returned to the United Kingdom in 1969. Ms Cockell has known that she was Mr Cockell’s daughter since she was 8 years of age. Neither Mrs Cockell, nor any of her children were aware of Ms Cockell’s existence, or that he had had a child by a previous relationship until after his death and until, after his funeral and after Ms Cockell had learnt of her father’s death on-line, she made herself known to Selina Cockell.

4. By his will, dated 29 April 2022, admitted to probate on 15 March 2023 Mr Cockell left the entirety of his estate to Mrs Cockell. That estate, referred to in the will as the Residue Fund was said to consist of a property at 12 Phoenix House, 104 Charing Cross Road London WC2 (Phoenix House), two savings accounts at, respectively, Santander and Halifax banks and a current account at Lloyds Bank, Mr Cockell’s tattooing equipment (Mr Cockell having been a well-known and well regarded tattoo artist) and what Mr Cockell referred to as his joint assets; namely his interest in his matrimonial home, with Mrs Cockell, at 9 Hillside Grove, in Mill Hill, London NW7 and the household effects at that property.

5. The net value of the estate, as stated in the Grant of Probate was said to be £500,000. In her written evidence, in her capacity as executor, Natalie stated that the true value of the estate was £450,000. In her ‘estate account’, setting out what was seen by Natalie and her mother as the net value of the estate available for distribution, following the sale of the matrimonial home and the purchase of an alternative, down-sized, property for Mrs Cockell, at 14 Stanhope Gardens, Mill Hill, was put at £413.391.96.

6. The various values placed on Mr Cockell’s estate are based upon two premises, one correct and one incorrect.

7. The correct premise is that, notwithstanding the terms of his will, Mr Cockell did not, at the date of his death, have any interest in the property at Phoenix House. The evidence as to that was that Mrs Cockell had been left an inheritance by her father, in 1994. She had given it to her husband, on the understanding that it would be invested in a property in Soho (Phoenix Court), in the same building in which Mr Cockell, at that time, carried on his tattooing business. The plan had been that this property would have been an investment for their retirement.

8. It is unclear whether that investment was ever made. What is clear, following investigations with the Land Registry, is that, at least since 2014, Phoenix Court has been owned by a Lara Panzini; a person entirely unknown to Mrs Cockell and her family. The necessary, but unfortunate, conclusion is that either Mr Cockell never purchased Phoenix Court, or that , prior to his death, he had sold Phoenix Court. In either event, there remains no trace either of the sum passed to Mr Cockell for investment, or, if that investment had taken place, any proceeds of that investment. At the date of his death, Mr Cockell’s savings consisted only of £259.43 in Lloyds Bank, £52.56 in Santander and £580.42 in an account with a Swiss Bank, Kantonal Bank, only traced by Natalie after her father’s death.

9. Ms Cockell asserts that, contrary to his wife and daughter’s evidence, Mr Cockell worked, as a tattoo artist, up until and, she says, including the date of Mr Cockell’s death and further that he remained involved in a business selling T shirts printed with images taken from his art work. While, as appears later in this judgment, I am quite sure that Ms Cockell makes this assertion in good faith, I am not at all persuaded that Mr Cockell was working, or trading, to anything like the extent that Ms Cockell suggests. What is, in any event, completely clear is that such income, if any, that Mr Cockell may have achieved from those activities did not result in his having any cash assets at the date of his death beyond those that I have identified in paragraph 8 of this judgment. Put bluntly, there is no evidence whatsoever of Mr Cockell, or his estate having any assets beyond those identified by Natalie, as his executor, or of the estate hiding any such assets from the court.

10. The incorrect premise, upon which Natalie and Ms Cockell’s solicitors seem to have acted, in identifying and declaring for probate, the value of Mr Cockell’s estate, is that Mr and Mrs Cockell held their long standing matrimonial home, at 9 Hillside Grove as tenants in common, such that Mr Cockell’s beneficial interest in that property formed part of his estate.

11. I am satisfied that that was an error. This was a family home, purchased and owned by a long married couple, who had both, in their working lifetimes, worked to pay for and support their joint home. There is no evidence at all, in those, typical and every day, circumstances, such as to displace the presumption of a beneficial joint tenancy, arising from the purchase and holding of the property in joint names, or to suggest that the intention of Mr and Mrs Cockell was anything other than that the interest of each of them, on death, would vest in the survivor.

12. The consequence of that conclusion is that 9 Hillside Grove has never formed part of Mr Cockell’s estate and that the true value of the estate, as at the date of his death was only the few hundreds of pounds held in his various bank accounts at the date of his death, together with any nominal value to be placed upon Mr Cockell’s personal effects..

13. In that last regard, those personal effects did not, although mentioned by Mr Cockell, in his will, include any tattooing equipment. Such equipment as was retained by Mr Cockell, or available to him, at the time of his death had been bought for his use by Natalie.

14. Nor, contrary to Ms Cockell’s suggestion, did those personal effects include any of Mr Cockell’s art work. There is, apparently, a market for his art work and pieces of his art work are, apparently, in that market. There is no evidence at all, however, that any such art work had been retained by Mr Cockell, as a the date of his death, or that such art work was a significant asset of his estate, let alone that Natalie, or any other member of Mr Cockell’s family has put any such art work into the market, or has hidden any such art work, or its value from the court. I reiterate that I regard Natalie as an honest and reliable witness, who has done all she can both to identify estate assets, including the Swiss account traced by her after her father’s death, and to conscientiously bring them to the attention of the court. The reality, as already explained, is that, far from being undervalued, the estate has been substantially over-valued.

15. The further consequence of the foregoing, given that the entire value of Mr Cockell’s estate will have been absorbed by the costs of his funeral and the costs of procuring probate, is that there remains no estate against which Ms Cockell can claim, unless the court takes the view that it is appropriate to make an order under section 9 of the 1975 Act . In this regard it is to be noted that when, following, as I understand it, a negotiated stand still period, this Claim was commenced, on 21 December 2023, at which date Ms Cockell was represented by solicitors, Hodge Jones and Allen LLP, the Claim Form contained an application under section 9 of the 1975 Act . The significance and potential implications flowing from the joint ownership of 9 Hillside Grove, were not overlooked.

16. Section 9 of the 1975 Act provides that where a deceased person was immediately before his death beneficially entitled to a joint tenancy of any property, then if … an application is made for an order under section 2 of the Act , the court for the purpose of facilitating the making of financial provision for the applicant under the 1975 Act , may order that the deceased’s severable share of that property … shall, to such an extent as appears to the court to be just in all the circumstances of the case be treated for the purposes of the 1975 Act as part of the net estate of the deceased.

17. As is clear from the section, the effect of an order under section 9 is to treat the joint tenancy as having been severed, such that, to the extent determined by the court, the deceased’s beneficial interest in the relevant property, post-severance, accretes to his estate and such that, conversely, the interest of the survivor of the deceased and his, or her, fellow joint tenant, otherwise arising, or vesting, by survivorship, is diminished to the extent determined by the court. If the court so determines, the entirety of the deceased’s beneficial share (50%) arising on severance would be treated as vesting in his estate, with the, otherwise absolute, interest of the survivor correspondingly diminished by 50%.

18. There are two pre-conditions for the exercise of this very considerable power. Firstly, the order can only be made for the purpose of facilitating the making of financial provision for the applicant in one, or some, of the forms set out in section 2 of the 1975 Act . Secondly, such an order can only be made to the extent that it is just in all the circumstances of the case.

19. The first of those conditions necessarily predicates that the provision made for the applicant from the estate of the deceased was not reasonable and, therefore, that the court should intervene to make that provision. In that event, providing it is in all the circumstances just to do so, the court can exercise its power to treat the joint tenancy as having been severed and, to the extent determined by the court, treat the deceased’s estate as including some, or all, of the value of the deceased’s half share arising on severance.

20. It follows that, if, even allowing for the possibility, envisaged by Wood J, in Kourkgy v Lusher , that, in determining whether, or not, reasonable provision had been made for any given applicant out of the deceased’s estate, the court should treat that estate as including some, or all, of the deceased’s half share arising on severance, the court were to conclude that reasonable provision had been made for the applicant, or that it was reasonable that no provision be made for the applicant, then the conditions affording the court the power to treat the deceased’s potential half share as forming part of his estate would not have been met and that power would, accordingly, be unavailable to the court. (1983) 4 FLR 65

21. In regard to the second pre-condition, namely that it must be just in all the circumstances for the section 9 power to be exercised, I note that, in her commentary upon this section, at paragraph 9.8.6 of Inheritance Act Claims (4 th Edition), the learned author, Nasreen Pearce, states that justice, in this context, embraces justice, not only to the applicant, but to all other interested parties.

22. It seems to me that that comment, while, in itself, accurate, does not fully reflect the weight that should be given to, in particular, the rights of the co-owner potentially affected by an order under section 9 of the 1975 Act . The effect of an order under section 9 of the 1975 Act is to divest a co-owner legally and beneficially entitled to the entire interest in the previously co-owned property of up to one half of the value of that interest and vest it in the estate of the deceased, contrary to the arrangements previously existing as between the co-owners, with a view to that value being applied to the benefit of an applicant for relief under the 1975 Act , with whom the co-owner may have had no connection whatsoever and to whom the co-owner may have owed no obligation of any sort. That is no small thing and not a course which, in justice to the co-owner, the court should lightly adopt.

23. There are circumstances, where, as it seems to me, it would, or might, be just to make an order under section 9 . If, for example, a property had been transferred from the sole name of the deceased into the joint names of the deceased and another, on the basis of a beneficial joint tenancy, either for the purpose of taking the property out of the deceased’s estate, or by way of a gift to the transferee of his, or her, interest under the joint tenancy, then I can well see that it might be just, in appropriate circumstances, to make an order under section 9 and, thereby, restoring at least a part of the gifted, or transferred property to the deceased’s estate. The same might apply if the property had been purchased in joint names, under a beneficial joint tenancy, with monies provided only by the deceased and where, therefore, there had been a clear element of gift in favour of the co-owner.

24. Where, however, as in this case, the two co-owners have worked together to purchase the property, in the contemplation that the property would go to the survivor, it does not seem to me that, in the absence of circumstances whereby the surviving co-owner, himself, or herself, owed some form of obligation to the applicant, proper grounds exist to divest the survivor of, in effect, up to one half of his, or her vested property.

25. In this case, Mrs Cockell was, until after the death of Mr Cockell, entirely unaware of the existence of Ms Cockell. She owed and owes her no obligations of any kind and I can see no good reason at all, therefore, to deprive Mrs Cockell of any part of her property, in favour of Ms Cockell, by the making of an order under section 9 of the 1975 Act .

26. I am reinforced in that conclusion by a consideration of the circumstances that Mrs Cockell has found herself in, following the death of her husband. Those circumstances demonstrate, beyond any doubt at all, the injustice, on the facts of this case, of any order under section 9 of the 1975 Act , depriving Mrs Cockell, in favour of Ms Cockell, of any part of her interest in the Property.

27. As already stated, Mrs Cockell is 65 years of age. She is registered disabled and in poor mental health. At the time of her husband’s death, she was not working and was reliant upon her husband’s state and other pension income. If and to the extent that Mr Cockell had, as discussed later in this judgment, any other income, I am not at all persuaded that that income came into his family, or provided support for Mrs Cockell. Mrs Cockell is, as yet, not in receipt of a state pension and will not be eligible for such a pension until she attains the age of 66.

28. The consequence of her husband’s death, in October 2022, and the termination of his pension income was that Mrs Cockell was left, in income terms, in financial extremis; with an income of £130.14 per month, made up of Government Bereavement Support of £100 per month and a virtually nominal private pension provision,, of £30.14, derived from Mr Cockell’s private pension. Government Bereavement Support came to an end in April 2024 and, since that date, Mrs Cockell’s income has been a nominal £30.14 per month.

29. To resolve, or alleviate, this situation, the only available source of funds to finance Mrs Cockell’s day by day living, other than recourse, also made, to her children, was to sell 9 Hillside Grove, purchase a smaller property and, thereby, release some of the equity tied up in 9 Hillside Grove, in order to provide Mrs Cockell a fund upon which she could live, at least until she became eligible for her state pension. To that end, Hillside Grove was sold, in October 2023, for £900,000 and 14 Stanhope Gardens, also in Mill Hill, was purchased at the same date for a total amount of just under £675,00, thereby, releasing some £215,000 to Mrs Cockell. Pending the release of these funds, Mrs Cockell relied, as already stated, upon her children and upon credit card borrowing.

30. Since October 2023, the balance released from the sale of 9 Hillside Grove has radically diminished. In excess of £9,000 went to repay living costs incurred pending the sale of Hillside Grove. £8,500 was used to repay a personal loan taken out by Mrs Cockell during her husband’s lifetime. Mr Cockell’s funeral expenses of circa £6,500 extinguished the very modest cash balances, set out in paragraph 8 of this judgment, leaving a balance to be paid out of the funds released from Hillside Grove. A sizeable sum (£16,200) went to the purchase of a car for Mrs Cockell. £13,000 has been spent in paying arrears of rent owed by Selina Cockell, who, I am told has had her own mental health issues. £12,000 (the only sum which might be described as a luxury, or an inessential) went on a family holiday to Hong Kong and China, following Mr Cockell’s death, fulfilling, as I understand it, Mr and Mrs Cockell’s aspiration that she be able to re-visit where she had been born. Regrettably and, in the circumstances, irrecoverably, given Ms Cockell’s means and circumstances, set out later in this judgment, some £70.000 has been expended on the legal fees associated with this litigation.

31. These sums total something over £130,000. As at 24 March 2025, the balance of the monies released from the sale of Hillside Grove stood at circa £34,500. All of the unaccounted difference between that figure and the amount released on the sale of Hillside Grove has been spent on Mrs Cockell’s core domestic, household, motoring and living expenses. No monies have been available to carry out building works, potentially to the value of £80,000, which it had been hoped might be spent in improving the condition of 14 Stanhope Gardens. Mrs Cockell has no further savings and, unless she downsizes again, no prospect of achieving any further savings in her lifetime. The monies, which were standing in Mrs Cockell’s name as at 24 March 2025, will be and already have been further diminished in order to meet Mrs Cockell’s living expenses until December 2025, when she will become eligible for a state pension.

32. What is demonstrated by the foregoing is that in order to restructure her life after the death of her husband and in order to meet the expenses of so doing, as well as meeting her living costs and expenditure on her family, without the benefit of any significant income, Mrs Cockell has had to utilise virtually the entirety of the value of 9 Hillside Grove and that she will be left, even when her state pension falls in, with only that income and what will be the very small residue of the monies released from the sale of 9 Hillside Grove.

33. While the position is distorted by the expenditure of the legal costs of this litigation, her position, even taking out of account those costs, would still not be a strong one. She would, on that footing, have her pension income from December 2025, together with capital in the order of, say, £85,000 with which to supplement her pension income and cover all eventualities for the rest of her life. Her only other means of improving her position would, as already stated, be by a further down size and a further release of equity.

34. Whichever analysis is applied, what is abundantly clear is that, without her ability to make use of the entirety of her interest in 9 Hillside Grove, Mrs Cockell would have been unable to restructure her life in the way that she has. In that context, any order that had required her, or were to require her to unravel those arrangements and to treat any part of her interest in 9 Hillside Grove as part of her husband’s estate and which precluded her use of the full value of the property in the remaking of her life would be manifestly and clearly unjust. This was, as already stated, a property that that she and her husband had worked to acquire and to deprive her of any part of the property, or its value and to require her to further rearrange her life, in favour, in her case, of someone of whom, in her husband’s lifetime, she was wholly unaware and to whom she owes no obligations of any sort would, quite simply, be wrong.

35. That conclusion is sufficient to dispose of this claim. Without an order under section 9 of the 1975 Act , Mr Cockell had no significant estate from which to make reasonable, or any, provision and, in consequence, there can have been no failure upon his part to make such provision.

36. All that said, I think it important both for purposes of completeness and to do justice to Ms Cockell to set out the position which would have obtained had I formed a different view as to the ownership of 9 Hillside Grove and, specifically, had I held that it had been owned by Mr and Mrs Cockell as tenants in common in equal shares, such that one half of the value of the property formed part of Mr Cockell’s estate.

37. My conclusion, shortly stated, is that, even in that case, there has been no failure to make reasonable provision for Ms Cockell.

38. The approach that the court takes in determining a claim for reasonable provision is well established, but, where, as here, a litigant acts in person, it bears repetition. The process that the court is required to undertake, as explained as long ago as 1980, in Re Coventry , and as further reinforced, more recently, in the Supreme Court, in [1980] Ch 460 Ilott v The Blue Cross and Others , has two stages. The fundamental stage is a determination by the court as to whether the provision, or lack of provision, made for the applicant out of the estate of the deceased was reasonable in all the relevant circumstances. If the answer is ‘yes’, then that is the end of the matter. If the answer is ‘no’, then the court moves on to consider what provision would in all the relevant circumstances have been reasonable and to make an order accordingly. What it is important to understand is that the court does not have, as it was put in [2017] UKSC 17 Re Coventry , ‘carte blanche’ to redirect the dispositions made by the deceased either under his, or her, will, or on intestacy, according to the court’s view as to what might, or might not, have been reasonable. The court can only intervene where it is satisfied that the provision made for the applicant, or the failure to make any provision, was unreasonable.

39. The question, therefore, in this case, is whether, on the footing, for present purposes, that Mr Cockell had an undivided half share in 9 Hillside Grove, which fell into his estate, it was reasonable for him to leave his entire estate, including that half share, to Mrs Cockell and, correspondingly that it was reasonable to make no provision for Ms Cockell.

40. I have already set out in some detail the circumstances in which Mrs Cockell was left on the death of her husband and the use that she has had to make of 9 Hillside Grove (embracing in the scenario now under discussion Mr Cockell’s undivided share in that property) in order to secure, as best she can, her position for the future. Given those circumstances and given, adopting the language of section 3 of the 1975 Act , Mrs Cockell’s financial needs and resources ( section 3(1) (c)), Mr Cockell’s obligations and responsibilities towards her flowing from a 47 year relationship and a 40 year marriage ( section 3(1) (d)), given, also, in the scenario now being discussed, the size and nature of Mr Cockell’s estate ( section 3(1) (e)), namely a half share in the matrimonial home, and taking account, also, of Mrs Cockell’s poor physical and mental health ( section 3(1) (f)) I find it very hard to see how it could possibly be regarded, otherwise than in truly exceptional circumstances, as unreasonable for Mr Cockell to leave his entire estate to his wife, or therefore, unreasonable for him not to make provision for Ms Cockell, by dividing his estate and reducing the resources available to Mrs Cockell for her future.

41. Ms Cockell is, as already stated, is 57 years of age and is Mr Cockell’s daughter by a relationship which preceded Mr Cockell’s marriage to Mrs Cockell. She is, as she submitted, in her closing remarks, Mr Cockell’s first-born. She has been in some contact with her father since she was eight. That contact, however, and that relationship with her father was never made known to Mrs Cockell and her children by Mr Cockell. Mrs Cockell and her children were unaware of Ms Cockell’s existence until after their father’s funeral.

42. Ms Cockell is divorced with three adult children. She lives, currently, in Melbourne, sharing a house with friends and paying, as I understand it $200 Aus. Per week for that accommodation. In broad terms $2 Aus. Is equivalent to one UK pound.

43. Ms Cockell is not well off. She is, currently, receiving state benefits in Australia at the rate of circa $950 Aus. per fortnight, together with modest and occasional Medicare benefits. Under the Australian benefit system, she is entitled to work, while receiving benefits, to an amount of $150 Aus. per fortnight. Her evidence to me, however, is that she is not working and that she remains ‘signed off’ sick by reason of the grief arising from the deaths, in close proximity, of her mother and her father. She tells me that she has not been able to live within her income, that she has exhausted her savings and that she has had to place some reliance upon her children, particularly, I think, her youngest son, Tanis, who is now 24 years of age.

44. Ms Cockell was closely cross examined at trial, as to her earnings and as to her ability to fund the apparent shortfall of circa $7000 Aus. between her income and her expenditure. The submission made to me, by Mr Michael, on behalf of Mrs Cockell, is that I should conclude that Ms Cockell has rather more earnings than she admits and that she falls within that category of adult child capable of living independently, who, as explained both in Re Coventry and in Ilott , is, without more, not susceptible of a grant od relief under the 1975 Act .

45. In regard to Ms Cockell’s earnings, I am satisfied, as I indicated at trial, that her current income is modest. She has, in the past, had earnings of some $60,000 Aus. per annum. There is no evidence, however, that her current income attains anything like that level, which is, in United Kingdom terms, itself only £30,000 per annum. There is, however, some evidence, including the core fact that she seems to have expenditure in excess of income and yet contrives to live without debt, that her income may not be wholly confined to benefits. In this regard, in particular, Mr Michael was able to point to a reference provided for Ms Cockell by a friend, Jennifer Davies, referring to Ms Cockell’s work as a nanny in the period from October 2022 to June 2023 and to the fact that Ms Cockell was only leaving her employ because of a move to Sydney, to Ms Cockell’s profile page on a nannying website, updated in September 2023, after she was ‘;signed off’, and seeking full time, part time, or casual employment and, also, to the product of a private investigation, commissioned by the Cockell family, in which Ms Cockell, in October 2023, was shown to be seeking employment in excess of 20 hours per week.

46. Ms Cockell, in evidence, sought to play down and explain that evidence, in particular that relating to the private investigation; explaining that what she had told the investigator amounted to nothing more than a failed attempt to get back to work. I did not, however, find myself wholly convinced. The likelihood, as it seems to me, is that Ms Cockell’s earnings are somewhat more than she has told me and that, while she is nowhere near well off, she has, or can obtain, sufficient earnings to sustain her modest way of life.

47. Taken in isolation, there is nothing in any of the foregoing, to render it unreasonable for Mr Cockell to make no provision for Ms Cockell, let alone to require him, in the circumstances explained in this judgment, to reduce, in Ms Cockell’s favour, the provision which (for purposes of the current discussion) he has made for his wife. The fact that Ms Cockell is his eldest daughter and, as she puts it, his first-born does not give her, in itself, any claim on his estate, even if such provision could be made without an adverse effect upon Mrs Cockell. It is not, in itself, unreasonable for a testator to make no provision for an adult child, son, or daughter, even one in m modest circumstances.

48. The question, therefore, in this analysis, is whether there is anything else, arising from Ms Cockell’s relationship with her father, to render it unreasonable of him to make no disposition in her favour, even at the cost of reducing the provision made for his wife and, thereby, adversely affecting Mrs Cockell’s already somewhat tenuous financial circumstances.

49. I do not wish to diminish Ms Cockell’s relationship with her father. I entirely accept that it was important to her and, given that, albeit secretly and behind the back of his wife and children, Mr Cockell persisted in his relationship with Ms Cockell over many years, I accept that it must have been of some importance to him, also.

50. Ms Cockell’s evidence at trial was that her father had kept in touch with her mother, after they had separated and after he had returned to the UK, and that he would occasionally send her mother money. She, herself, had first been told about her father by her aunts. After she first became aware of and in contact with her father, from the age of eight, she had remained in contact with him throughout the rest of his life. She explained that they were in contact by telephone and letter and that the contact was particularly close when she was a teenager. It had not, as she put it, been a good time for her and her father had given her support. She explained that, as she grew older and was married and bringing up three children, the contact diminished, but never ceased. They would talk, she estimated, four times a year. Mr Cockell would, she said, from time to time send her gifts of money. She had never asked for money, but he would send her money, in the order of £200, perhaps four times a year. Despite the distance between Australia and the UK, she described her relationship with her father as close. They were, she said, like two peas in a pod.

51. Ms Cockell, she says, first visited her father and, therefore, first met her father in 2012 and visited again in 2013, 2018 and 2019. She tells me that she had planned a further visit in December 2022 and that during that visit she and her father were intending to finalise arrangements for her to move to the UK. That plan, for her to move to the UK, had, she said, been long under discussion and had been intended to be implemented as and when her youngest son, Tanis, left full time education. In preparation for her move to the UK, her father had provided her with his passport details and birth certificate to assist the immigration process. Their plan, she said, was that he would provide her with work in one of his tattoo parlours, at an opening salary of £23,000 per year. There were also promises of help with accommodation and that he would teach her his trade. In her words, this was to be their ‘time together’.

52. In respect of her visits to her father, Ms Cockell told me that each visit had lasted about three weeks. On the first visit, as I understand it, she was accompanied by a friend, Jane Cosgrave, During those visits she would spend time with her father in Soho while he was tattooing, specifically, I think, at a studio that she said that he maintained in Green Court in Soho, She also exhibits evidence of attending the theatre, Les Miserables, with him, during her 2012 visit and, also attending a New Year’s Eve party at the Savoy on New Year’s Eve 2013. When she was in London her father would meet her for lunches and dinners, for which he would pay. To assist her visits, she recorded receipt of payments from Mr Cockell, totalling £2,700. Her evidence, based, presumably, on those London visits, what her father told her and information acquired from those in the tattooing world who knew her father, was that, as previously stated, her father remained a working tattooist right up until his dying day.

53. I have seen no reason to doubt the honesty and good faith of Ms Cockell’s evidence, or that she visited her father, in the way she says, or that they had discussions along the lines that she has explained. I accept, also, without question that this relationship between father and daughter was entirely secret and was carried on behind the back of Mrs Cockell and her and Mr Cockell’s children. Mr Cockell plainly had a secret life

54. I am confronted, however, with a radical dichotomy between what Ms Cockell says and what Mrs Cockell says, in particular as to Mr Cockell’s continuing work as a tattooist up to the time of his death.

55. Mrs Cockell and Natalie’s evidence is that Mr Cockell ceased to work on a regular basis as a tattooist as long ago as July 2003, when he found that the trade was not providing him and his family with a living, In that year, as evidenced by an offer of employment, dated 28 July 2003, he was employed at Buckingham Palace as a Craft Auxiliary at a starting salary of £14,500 per annum. That employment continued until circa 2007, from which date he was, subject to guest appearances as a tattooist, living in retirement. Medical notes show a long history of high blood pressure, together with back problems. Natalie’s evidence was that, prior to his death, Mr Cockell was taking five separate pills, each day, in order to control his heart condition.

56. In regard to guest work as a tattooist, Mrs Cockell and Natalie identified 12 occasions between 2015 and 2021 when Mr Cockell made guest appearances as a tattooist. I was told that some of these appearances enabled him to go abroad with his expenses paid but that otherwise he appeared without payment. Other than via his continuing connections within the tattooing world, they were entirely unaware of any interest that Mr Cockell may have had in any tattooing parlour.

57. Mr Cockell undoubtedly had a secret life and Ms Cockell was, I am satisfied, part of that life. It seems likely to me that that secret life may, after Mr Cockell’s retirement have extended, in work terms, rather further than occasional guest appearances. Ms Cockell’s evidence is that, at least in the limited periods when she was visiting London, her father was carrying out some tattooing work in Soho. Whether and to what extent his continuing work went beyond that is hard to evaluate, It cannot have been in sufficient quantity as to bring it to the attention of his family and, other than during her visits, Ms Cockell’s evidence as to his work can only derive either from what her father told her, or what she may have been told by other and unspecified sources.

58. I am not persuaded, in this regard, that Mr Cockell is a reliable voice. He was, manifestly, not telling his family the entire truth about his life outside the home and, regrettably, there remains a significant question as to the use of the money that he obtained from his wife and which was supposed to go towards securing their retirement. As already set out, there is no evidence that any ‘unofficial’ earnings that he may have procured behind the back of his family gave rise to any significant accretion of funds to his estate. My strong sense is that it was those’ unofficial’ earnings, together, perhaps, with the money acquired from his wife which enabled Mr Cockell to fund, to the extent he did, Ms Cockell’s visits to the UK and his expenditure on her during those visits.

59. The further, likelihood, as it seems to me, is that, perhaps to impress his daughter, he ‘glamorised’ and overstated his position in the tattooing world. There is no evidence at all that he had any interest in a tattooing parlour after 2003 and the probability, I think, is that any promises that he may have made to Ms Cockell as to job opportunities, or financial support, as and when she came to the UK, were reliant, primarily, upon his ability to continue his ‘unofficial’ earnings and upon any job opportunities that he may have been able to persuade his contacts in the industry to give her. It is, from this perspective, perhaps fortunate that Ms Cockell’s plan to emigrate to the United Kingdom was never fulfilled.

60. Reverting to the question posed in paragraph 48 of this judgment, does any of the foregoing give rise to the conclusion that Mr Cockell acted unreasonably in electing to make no disposition in favour of Ms Cockell, rather than leaving his entire estate to his wife?

61. The answer remains ‘no’. Ms Cockell has undoubtedly been disappointed in her hopes and expectations, whether realistic or otherwise, that she might have been enabled to start a new life in the United Kingdom. That, however, does not mean that Mr Cockell came under any obligation to make reasonable provision for her from his estate, or to reduce the provision in his wife’s favour in order to accommodate a gift to Ms Cockell. Ms Cockell was not dependent upon Mr Cockell and while, had resources been plentiful, it would have been perfectly reasonable for Mr Cockell to make some disposition in her favour, it was certainly not, given the circumstances obtaining in respect of his wife and his obligations to her, unreasonable to make no provision for her.

62. In that regard, it is right to record that Ms Cockell is not seeking any excessive amount by way of provision, She is seeking something in the order of £42,500 and, although her savings have, she says, been depleted by this litigation, she is not seeking her costs. The award, she said, would go toward assisting her in her housing, providing her with a car and giving her a modest sum for contingencies. Even at that modest level, however, I cannot see that Mr Cockell could be said to have acted unreasonably in making no provision for her and in settling his estate in the way he did.

63. The position might have been different, if Ms Cockell’s move to the United Kingdom had taken place before Mr Cockell’s death and if the promises made to her, whether realistic, or fanciful, had been acted upon. In that circumstance, having led Ms Cockell to reshape her life, by leaving Australia for the UK, one can readily see that Mr Cockell would have been under some moral obligation to look after her from his estate. That, however, is not what happened.

64. Even had it happened, I am far from satisfied that, given Mr Cockell’s obligations to his wife, he would have been acting unreasonably in not making provision for Ms Cockell. While it would have been perfectly reasonable, in that context, to make some provision for her, it would not necessarily, in the circumstances obtaining in this case, have been unreasonable not to do so. The situation would, I think, have been one of those, explained and discussed in Ilott and in Re Coventry , where Mr Cockell’s dispositions in respect of his estate being, in themselves, reasonable, the court would not have been properly empowered to intervene.

65. Be this last as it may, however, in the result this claim fails. This is not a case where it would be just to make an order under section 9 of the 1975 Act and, in the absence of such an order, Mr Cockell had no significant estate out of which to make provision in favour of Ms Cockell. Even if, contrary to my clear view, Mr Cockell’s interest in 9 Hillside Grove had been an interest under a tenancy in common, such that his share in that property vested in his estate, I have no doubt bur that he acted entirely reasonably in leaving his entire estate, including therefore, that interest to his wife and, correspondingly, I have no doubt that on the facts and in the circumstances arising in this case there was no failure to make reasonable provision for Ms Cockell.

66. In the result, I will dismiss this claim. The Defendants have indicated, rightly, in all the circumstances, that they will not seek costs from Ms Cockell. I will, accordingly, make no order as to costs.