The seizure and 'sale' of Freddie's home - Tara House - Part 3.
There was only £8,500.94 left from the sale of our magnificent "Tara House" home after the dirty hands of these unscrupulous people had finished thieving, and Official Solicitors Drennan and Hall and QC Kerr all agreed that this was "in the patient's best interests". What unmitigated folly! At least three times this amount had to be spent on 4 Norwood Gardens to make it habitable in the following years adding to the heartache of my mother, Freddie and the rest of our family. Official Solicitors added even more suffering to my elderly mother which I will go into later.
This document seems to have come from the Office of the Official Solicitor. The Official Solicitor's statement is in blue and my comments are in red.
Let us look at this sequence of events.
"On 3rd Dec 1975 the Patient contracted to sell his dwelling house to Mr Gerald Patrick Jemphrey for the sum of £38,750.
"Tara House" belonged to my brother Freddie who was certified as having a mental age of about ten years and incapable of making any decision about the sale of property or looking after his own affairs. It was well-known to everybody in and around the family that Freddie had been in this condition since his teenage years and Charles Gilpin would have been well aware of this fact as he 'hung around' my father a lot. As a solicitor, Mr. Jemphrey should have been aware of this situation. He must have been aware of the knock-down price he was getting "Tara House" for as it would have been second nature to him as a solicitor to check up on the fact that Sir Adam Turner built this house in the 1920s for £37,000. Such a magnificent property would have increased in value during that time by more than £1,750, especially given the fact that my father spent a lot of money on the gardens and interior of the buildings, putting in another bathroom among other improvements. This conspiracy to defraud my mother and my brother must be exposed and punished and the property returned to our family.
"The sale was completed and an assignment executed by the Patient on the 31st March '76."
This is absolute nonsense. Freddie was incapable of authorising such a sale.
"A Valuation of the property prepared by Messrs Desmond McConnell & Martin & Co dated 1st August 1975 had suggested that the property was then worth £37,500. Messrs James Boston & Sullivan acting on behalf of Mr W.J. Andrews and Mrs Vera Douglas obtained a Valuation from Messrs MaCrory & Jefferson of 44 Donegall St Belfast dated 3rd Nov 1983 which states that in their opinion the property had a value in February 1976 of £50,500."
Both these valuations grossly undervalue "Tara House".
The accounts in the report of this sale and the related purchase of 4 Norwood Gdns were prepared by Messrs Tughan & Co [corrupt solicitors] showing their own costs and outlays, other expenses borne by the Patient [Yes, the wealthy vulnerable Patient who was ripe for robbing] and the provision of a bridging loan from the Ulster Bank Ltd to enable the purchase of 4 Norwood Gdns to be completed before the completion of the sale of 14 Castlehill Road.
The purchase of 4 Norwood Gardens was absolutely unnecessary, making the expensive bridging loan unnecessary. Now, here is a question. How did my mentally-handicapped brother Freddie who had a certified mental age of around 10 obtain a bridging loan??? It was all set up by Charles Gilpin and Tughan & Co whose interest did not lie with my mother or my brother Freddie. Another solicitor, Mr. Jemphrey, was already lined up to grab Freddie's home and grab it he did.
Although the sale was completed in April 1976 the next proceeds of sale amounting to £8,950.65 do not appear in the Patients general account with Messrs Tughan & Co in their clients ledger until 4th April 1977." [Why does the figure of £8,500.94 appear on the above accounts?]
Charles Gilpin and Tughan & Co combined to defraud Freddie of his magnificent home "Tara House". They 'sold' it for £38,750 having already bought 4 Norwood Gardens for Freddie and my mother with Freddie's money for £23,500 - or so the Official Solicitor stated. As mentioned above, this totally defective house had to have, at least, a further £17,000 of Freddie's money spent on it, on one occasion, to make it habitable which meant that 4 Norwood Gardens actually cost more than the beautiful and good home my mother and brother were illegally put out of. Not only did Gilpin and Tughan & Co put my elderly mother and handicapped brother Freddie out of their beautiful home and into a, then, slum, but they actually charged Freddie a load of money for their 'trouble'!!!
In Official Solicitor Brian Hall's Report to the High Court dated January 30th 1984 it states:
29. Domestic arrangements. The Patient now resides at 4 Norwood Gardens, Belfast which was purchased by an Assignment dated 24 November 1975 for the sum of £23,500. I have already indicated, in paragraph 9 above, that the view already taken by Mr Drennan in the course of his preliminary enquiries that it was in the Patient's best interests to move to a smaller and more manageable property is shared by me and by Mr Kerr.
I hope you, Mr. Hall and Mr. Kerr QC, and many others read the previous paragraph and see the shocking folly of your statements. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
The amount of money stated to have been obtained from the 'sale' of "Tara House" was £38,750.
No. 4 Norwood Gardens is stated to have been purchased for £23,500.
The difference in these amounts is £15,250.
There was only £8,950.65 left after "the accounts of this sale of 4 Norwood Gdns were prepared by Messrs Tughan & Co showing their own costs and outlays and other expenses borne by the Patient".
This means that Tughan & Co took £6,299.35 of Freddie's money in addition to relieving Freddie and his mother of their lovely home and put them into a totally defective dwelling.
So far, 4 Norwood Gardens had cost Freddie £23,500 plus £6,299.35 which adds up to £29,799.35.
Of course that is not the end of Freddie's outlay on this hijacking.
Freddie's money was hoarded by the legal eagles to the extent that he was allowed £25 per week pocket money which increased to £50 per week. My husband and I had to do repairs to 4 Norwood Gardens at our own expense after we went to live there with Freddie and my mother in the summer of 1982.
It was to be another twelve years before we, with the determined help of Councillor Chris McGimpsey, were able to persuade the Official Solicitor to part with £17,000 of Freddie's own money to do essential building and electrical repairs to this defective house. Had Freddie and my mother been allowed to stay in their own home, such an outlay would not have been necessary.
Instead of Freddie's enforced outlay of £29,799.35 gaining in value, more money, all £17,000 of it, was taken out of his account to make 4 Norwood Gardens habitable, bringing the total outlay to £46,799.35.
There had to be a further £7,000 spent on 4 Norwood Gardens which I hope to detail later bringing the total to £53,799.35.
Now, compare the disastrous financial debacle of the 4 Norwood Gardens deal for my mentally handicapped brother Freddie, with the absolutely fabulous financial utopia which the "Tara House" deal became for certain people especially in the 'legal profession'.
The value put on "Tara House" by estate agents to take the house off Freddie and my mother was accepted as the sale price at £38,750, but, now read this slowly, the next value put on "Tara House" by estate agents (we have to find out the date of this sale and to whom) when it was next put up for sale was £425.000 - as you can see above for yourself.
Let me repeat that in case you think I have made a mistake:
The value put on "Tara House" by estate agents to take the house off Freddie and my mother was accepted as the sale price at £38,750, but, now read this slowly, the next value put on "Tara House" by estate agents (we have to find out the date of this sale and to whom) when it was next put up for sale was £425.000 - as you can see above for yourself.
Of course "Tara House" did not sell for that amount of money. No way. It sold for much more than that. "Tara House" which was put on the open market this time, unlike the time it was 'sold' to solicitor Mr. Jemphry who was given first refusal on the first day the house was put on the market illegally, was sold for just under half a million pounds, and, I believe, it was purchased by a High Court Judge although this has yet to be confirmed.
When "Tara House" was taken off my mother and Freddie, the thieving did not end there. I am including below, copies of two statements from Ross's the auction people which contain details of valuable items being sold in my mother's name. My mother would never have parted with one of these items of her own free will.
Everything my father did was for the good and well-being of my mother and our family. Our lovely home contained the most beautiful furniture and effects. These were also investments which my father was happy to leave his elderly wife and handicapped son. Somebody sold them in my mother's name when she was moved to 4 Norwood Gardens, Belfast. Who was that "Somebody" and where did the thousands of pounds go?
Today, McKelvey's paintings alone would go for many thousands of pounds each.
My mother would never have willingly parted with them for any amount of money.
Invasion Of Privacy.
When this advertisement appeared in the Belfast Telegraph in the latter half of 1974 it was the first indication our family circle had that something was not as it should be at home.
Tara House, or 'Tara' as was stated in the advertisement, was mother's and Freddie's home - why was it being sold? My mother had never mentioned that it was to be sold even on the Thursdays I called to take her and Freddie out in my car.
"There was no money left to keep it going", my mother told us in her new address, "so Mr. Gilpin said".
We all knew that this just could not be right and there must have been some money left to buy what she and Freddie were now living in at Number 4 Norwood Gardens, a run-down, damp, neglected and totally shabby dwelling which we found out later had been on the market for a considerable time as nobody was interested in buying it in its, then, present state.
Neither my husband nor I, nor the other members of our family, knew what was going on and just did not know what to do. Mr. Gilpin was a Christian of the highest order in the Plymouth Brethren and a highly respectable man who had seemed to like being in my father's company from time to time although my father made it known that we should keep Mr. Gilpin at a distance, which we did. Now we were just too intimidated to confront him and for the first time our family members confronted each other instead.
This was all happening within two years of my father's death and gradually we learned from my mother that Mr. Gilpin had told her that our long-time family solicitors Boston & Sullivan were no good and that he would get her 'a great little solicitor'. He encouraged her to take all her legal business from Boston & Sullivan and put it all in the care of his own solicitors Tughan & Company, also in Belfast, and especially 'a good Christian Solicitor' called Mr. Herbert Wright who was then a junior solicitor in Tughan & Co. Incredibly, my mother also told us that she had made out her will and made Mr. Gilpin sole executor - with Mr. Wright as witness - just nine months after my father died. We did not like what we were hearing but we still did not feel able to face the intimidating Mr. Gilpin.
It is recorded at paragraph 5 of Official Solicitor Brian Hall's Comprehensive Report to the High Court Judge on 30 January 1984 that "Acting on Mr Gilpin's instructions or introduction Mr Wright obtained written authorisations signed by Mrs Andrews and by the Patient, both dated 25 June 1973, which he sent to Miss Sullivan (of Messrs James Boston & Sullivan) with requests for her to hand over the title deeds relating to their respective properties. Miss Sullivan complied with these requests and delivered all the title deeds in accordance with the formal authorisations given". We knew that Freddie had property although we did not know to what extent or where, but what did Brian Hall mean by stating "their respective properties"? Had my father left my mother property too? Had these people found out that my mother had property and where it was? Had Charles Gilpin got deeds to property belonging exclusively to my mother? This statement made by Official Solicitor Hall must be clarified.
I just do not understand how Miss Sullivan simply handed over all the title deeds and other documents with which my father had entrusted her as the family solicitor and then as an executor and Trustee in his Will. In fact I firmly believe that Miss Sullivan was a person of the highest character, but I now know that the people she had then to deal with were ruthless. Over the years I have learned a lot more about the goings-on at that time. Not only were Charles Gilpin and solicitor Herbert Wright totally committed to taking possession of all my father's documents and deeds but as you can see from this letter from solicitors Boston & Sullivan to my late sister Vera Douglas, the Royal Ulster Constabulary also had an interest in them too. As a major property developer, a Director of the Northern Bank, the owner of a shopping complex in Bangor and with interests in businesses in England, Charles Gilpin was paid a lot of respect and it seems he had the support of the RUC when he should not have had that support.
My father was a very intelligent man and totally committed to his family. He seemed to feel he should protect his family from the big world of business which meant that when he died, we had no way of knowing just what property or money he had, or what property or money Freddie owned after my father's death. Of course he had told us from time to time that Freddie would be looked after and we just left it at that as father knew best. Seven or eight years were to elapse before a remarkable young Queens University student befriended me and did much work on my case, helping me to write letters, giving advice and researching files in the Land Registry. He was able to identify all the property my father had bought in Freddie's name. This young man, to whom I am eternally grateful, wishes to remain anonymous.
Here is a list of properties Freddie owned when my father died.
It was my older brother, Billy, who first discovered the real depth of Mr. Gilpin's selfish and shocking involvement in our family's affairs. As you can see from this statement of my brother Billy, Mr. Gilpin even had possession of my father's Will before any member of our family had seen it. Not only did he succeed in having all my father's business and domestic documents and papers removed from the family solicitors Boston & Sullivan and delivered into his own solicitors Tughan & Company, but this same Mr. Gilpin employed two men to remove my father's personal safe from 14 Castlehill Road with all its contents and it was never seen again.
You will see from my father's Will that my father had appointed solicitor Gwendoline Sullivan of Boston & Sullivan as one of his Executors and a Trustee of his Will. Notwithstanding this fact, the reader will see that an account was opened in the Northern Ireland Industrial Bank in Bangor in the names of Charles Gilpin and solicitor Herbert Wright calling themselves Trustees for Freddie Andrews. Gilpin and Wright were not Trustees of anything concerning my mentally-handicapped brother Freddie, but they appointed themselves his Trustees for their own selfish and greedy ends. This was part of their overall plan to steal all Freddie's property and pocket as much of Freddie's money as they felt that they could get away with. Even my brother Billy and sisters and my mother became targets too.
