A former cider company boss who set fire to his mineral water tycoon brother's car after receiving a smaller share of their parents' inheritance has been ordered to pay £875,000 in legal costs following an unsuccessful lawsuit.
Background of the Dispute
Alastair Bowerman, 57, took legal action after being left a one-third share of the £230,000 cash from his parents' wills. His brother Ben Bowerman, 60, received cash and shares in the 460-acre family farm on Dorset's Isle of Purbeck, which includes a Grade I-listed medieval manor house and a profitable mineral water spring.
Their parents, Jean and John Bowerman, initially made wills in 1988, dividing cash between Alastair and their third brother David, while Ben was to inherit the family farm business. The farm houses a natural mineral water spring exploited through a company run by Ben, which once ranked as the third largest supplier of water cooler bottles in the UK.
Changes to the Wills
The father's estate was expected to be boosted by inheritance from their grandfather, which would also favour Alastair and David. However, Jean and John made new wills in 1999, granting Ben an equal share of all cash and their remaining business shares, after having given him most of them a year earlier.
After John's death in 2004 and Jean's in 2012, the combined estates were worth only £230,000, as the grandfather's inheritance never materialised.
Legal Battle and Arson Conviction
Alastair, whose Dorset Cider company folded in 2005, told lawyers he 'did not agree with the gift of the farm business' to Ben and suspected a 'conspiracy'. In 2015, he was convicted of arson and given a restraining order after 'setting fire to Ben's car'. He later alleged Ben 'had committed fraud… and corruption on a massive scale' in an email to lawyers.
Representing himself in a four-day trial at London's High Court last year, Alastair sued his two brothers as executors of their parents' wills and the professional administrator of Jean's estate. He argued that his father's 1999 will was invalid due to lack of knowledge and approval, and that his mother's will was subject to Ben's undue influence.
Court Decision
Although Master Julia Clark was convinced that Alastair's father was too ill to understand the 1999 will changes, Alastair lost his case because he brought it in 2023, a decade after his mother's death and over 18 years after his father's.
He has now been ordered to pay Ben's legal costs of more than £777,000, plus those of his brother David and the estate administrator, who claimed around £100,000. The total bill wipes out Alastair's inheritance many times over, with the court noting that 'overall costs to be paid will exceed the sums in the estate'. Alastair did not attend the costs hearing and was not represented.
