Sons of man who left fortune to BNP in court battle to claim money

BNP Treasurer Clive Jefferson is battling against Mr Robson’s sons’ call for a ruling that the gift was illegal Photo: Champion News

The sons of an English expat who left his £389,000 fortune to the British National Party in his will are battling in the High Court to claim the money.

When Northumbria-born Joseph Robson died in Alicante at the age of 81 in March 2010, he bequeathed his entire estate outside Spain – worth £389,000- to the British National Party, leaving his two sons, Jeremy and Simon, with £135 between them.

After their father’s death, Mr Robson’s sons launched a legal challenge to his will, insisting that their father was barred from giving his money to a British political party, because he had not been a registered UK voter in the five years before his death.

Now the BNP, represented by party Treasurer, Clive Jefferson, is battling against the sons’ call for a ruling that the gift was illegal, and that their nationalist father had become a “foreigner” in the eyes of the law by the time he died.

Judge Richard Sheldon QC heard that Mr Robson, who was born in Ashington, Northumberland in 1928, and lived in Willow Tree Crescent, Lutterworth Leicestershire, after divorcing from his sons’ mother in the 1970s, moved to Alicante on his retirement in 1992.

He made a will in 1996, leaving the whole of his worldly goods to the BNP, apart from a Spanish bank account containing just £135, which he bequeathed to Jeremy.

But the BNP ran into trouble when it tried to lay hands on the gift, the judge heard, after Mr Robson’s sons claimed he was not legally permitted to make the political donation.

Barrister, Alex Troup, representing the executor of the will, told the judge that the sons claim Mr Robson failed to register on the UK electoral roll at any time during the five years prior to his death.

That meant that, under rules introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 2000 to curb “foreign donations” to British political parties, the expat was not entitled to make the gift, whether dead or alive.

Mr Troup explained that the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 restricted “permissible donors” to UK political parties to those whose names had appeared on a UK electoral register “in the period of five years ending with the date of his death.”

Phillip Capon, for the sons, told the judge that the rules mean that Mr Robson effectively died intestate and that, despite his wishes, his whole fortune ought to be handed to Jeremy and Simon.

Robert Grierson, representing Mr Jefferson, argued that the party had successfully overcome the problem in September 2011 by executing a deed of variation to the will which would see the money paid into a specially set up charitable trust, rather then to the party directly.

The trustees of the charity are Mr Jefferson, Nick Griffin’s daughter Jennifer Matthys, and former leading National Front member, Patrick Harrington, who is now a key adviser to party leader, Nick Griffin.

But Mr Capon insisted that moving the cash into the trust would make no difference and could not legitimise an “illegal” political donation.

“The obligation under the Act is to pay the money back. The BNP is not entitled to the gift under this will. It does not have the lawful capacity under the Act to accept this gift. The gift fails and there is an intestacy,” he told the court.

Mr Capon told the judge that Mr Jefferson, in his representative capacity as BNP Treasurer, could in theory face prosecution under the 2000 Act if the party was found to have accepted the payment illegally.

Mr Harrington, addressing the judge in person, argued that it would be “utterly unjust” for the party to be stripped of Mr Robson’s bequest.

“One son was given nothing and the other was give less than £150. It seems pretty clear that the father didn’t want the bulk of his estate to go to his two sons – he wanted it to go to a political party,” he said.

“Mr Robson had every right to be on the electoral register but, for whatever reason, he was unaware of the provision that he had to be. The pathway can never lead to the sons, that can never happen,” he added.

Denying that the BNP are fighting the case because they are badly in need of funds, he told the judge: “The BNP has received sizeable legacies as its support base tends to be amongst older people. It is not desperate for money.”

Mr Harrington asserted that the money ought to be released to the trustees by the executor of the will because, “at this stage no one knows whether or not he was a permitted donor”.

He promised that, were the cash released, “a large pool of voluntary BNP labour” would be “sitting in the British Library going through every electoral roll in the country” to find out if Mr Robson was registered to vote in any UK constituency in the five years before he died.

“His solicitor should have told him that he needed to be on the register,” Mr Harrington said.

Expressing his preliminary views on the dispute, Judge Sheldon commented: “The deed of variation itself would suggest that the BNP were not satisfied that Mr Robson was a permissible donor.

“If the BNP had investigated whether or not Mr Robson was a permitted donor there would be no need for this hearing.”

The judge reserved his decision on the dispute until a later date.

The Telegraph