For over four years Lorraine Bristow has tirelessly campaigned to change a strange Scottish succession law which has allowed her brother, who murdered their mother, to remain the executor of the victim’s estate.
Although he is no longer able to inherit the estate, the archaic law has provided him with the power and jurisdiction to oversee the administration of his victim’s worldly possessions.
The family have now engaged with the Scottish government to intervene and change a law that would allow a murderer to become the executor of their victim’s estate.
In a bid to gain justice and modernise the Scottish succession laws, Lorraine Bristow is looking to raise £40,000 through a crowd funding website to ensure that strange circumstances, like their position, are avoided in the future by initiating the legal campaign.
Furthermore, the family have also started a petition stating that convicted murderers should lose their right to act as executors. The combination of the legal challenge and petition has been set up to run alongside each other to bolster the family’s chances of receiving justice in such a bizarre and unfair use of legal bureaucracy.
It has been widely reported that since Ross Taggart was convicted of murdering his mother, Carol Anne, in 2014, he has used this power to abuse his position by neglecting his mother’s property, preventing his sister access and generally frittering away the assets on expensive lawyer consultations and maintenance work that could be carried out by Lorraine’s husband.
In October, Lorraine was granted permission to enter her mother’s bedroom, under the supervision of Taggart’s lawyer. What she found was a horror show compared to the house proud property her mother kept. Mice and insects had overrun the property and the general condition was deteriorating without the constant presence and upkeep of a permanent resident.
Mr Bristow, Larraine’s husband and the killer’s brother-in-law, said: “It’s not right. This is nothing about money, it’s about doing the right thing. It’s to get a bit of closure.
“The £40,000 is just to go to court. We sing off his hymn sheet, we send a question to his lawyers and we’ve waited three or four weeks for a response.
“We complained that the garden was overgrown and it got fixed. But who’s paying the gardener? The estate will be. He’s dwindling it away.”
Although the situation is so unique and rare, how can circumstances like this take so long to rectify? Why do the beneficiaries receive so little rights in this situation?
