A disinherited nephew faces up to two years in jail after the High Court found he had breached an injunction granted to Foot Anstey in December 2024.
Mr Justice Griffiths found Sean Stimson to be in contempt of court following a campaign of “vitriolic” threats and abuse against the firm.
In an earlier hearing, Foot Anstey’s barrister Kate Wilson had told the court an email sent in June last year referred to an appeal Stimson 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”.
She added: “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.”
The letter was “abusively addressed” to “Dear Foot Anstey W**kers” 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 sh*t out of all of you including the b*tches. I have had enough of your cr*p 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*tches” reference was especially troubling as the staff members who had worked on the charity will dispute were women.
Foot Anstey claimed the abuse put Stimson in contempt of court for breaching a January 2025 court order obtained by the firm. A series of undertakings recorded in the order permitted contact from Stimson 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.”
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”.
But Daniel Mullin, barrister for Mr Stimson, had denied the “w**kers” 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.
However, Mr Justice Griffiths found Stimson was in contempt of court over both the letter and the email in the face of “overwhelming” evidence.
He said: “The evidence that Dr Stimson wrote the letter and caused it to be sent is overwhelming. It includes but is not limited to the direct evidence of the signature, and the content of the letter, which is in the first person and from Dr Stimson about his aunt.
“Even if all the evidence is properly to be treated as circumstantial, however (including that evidence), a reasonable mind can only conclude, as I conclude, that there is no realistic possibility that anyone other than Dr Stimson wrote the letter and caused it to be sent. I find as a fact to the criminal standard of proof that he did both.”
In relation to the email, Mr Justice Griffiths added: “The email is not, when read as a whole, threatening only due process or lawful force. The sentence ‘My aunt’s last wishes were very clear, and they will not be ignored and if necessary defended with force’ can only be read as a threat of force, that is physical force, and not as a threat to pursue legal proceedings forcefully. The threat of force was a clear and unambiguous breach of para 1.4 of the undertakings.”
In a previous judgment on the dispute between Mr Stimson and the law firm, 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 Dr Stimson and this led to a dispute between him and Foot Anstey, who are the administrators of the estate, instructed by the beneficiary charities.”
Mrs Justice Hill said that, on the evidence she had seen, he had not been able to substantiate Simpson’s assertions of a lack of capacity and probate has since been granted to the charities involved.
Image courtesy of Champion News
