Churchill v Roach
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | JUDGE NORRIS |
| Judgment Date | 18 July 2002 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] EWHC 3230 (Ch) |
| Court | Chancery Division |
| Docket Number | BM30078 |
| Date | 18 July 2002 |
[2002] EWHC 3230 (Ch)
His Honour Judge Norris Q.C.
BM30078
IN THE BIRMINGHAM HIGH COURT
BIRMINGHAM DISTRICT REGISTRYY
CHANCERY DIVISION
Civil Justice Centre
The Priory Courts
33 Bull Street
Birmingham
MR. G. CAMPBELL (instructed by Messrs. Lodders, Stratford-upon-Avon) appeared on behalf of the Claimant.
MR. D. McCONVILLE (instructed by Messrs. Blakemores, Birmingham) appeared on behalf of the Defendants.
(As approved by the Judge)
The parties will be anxious to know what the answer is, so I will give the answer first, and then explain my reasons for it.
The conclusion at which I have arrived is that Muriel Churchill shall be entitled to have Nos. 5 and 6 Ferry Lane on condition that she pays the estate the sum of £65,000.
I shall now give my reasons for that. Arnold Bursell ("Arnold") died suddenly on 15th April 2000, just short of his 72nd birthday. He left a wife, Marjorie, whom he had married in 1954 and from whom he had separated in 1987 and with whom he had entered into a separation agreement in May 1998. Marjorie was a Roman Catholic and as a Roman Catholic was opposed to divorce. Arnold respected her view. That is why a separation agreement was entered into. He also left two children, Nicola and Paul, both adult and embarked on their careers in life. This family lived in Scotland in and around Aberdeen. By a Scottish will dated 6th April 1979 Arnold had made provision for his family. Arnold also left Dr. Muriel Churchill, a professional colleague since 1989 and a social partner and lover since 1992. He had set up home with her in December 1998 at 5 and 6 Ferry Lane, Alveston. Of this relationship with Muriel Churchill the Scottish family knew nothing.
Muriel Churchill now advances two claims against Arnold's estate. In the first she seeks a declaration that the property, 5 and 6 Ferry Lane Alveston, is held by the estate upon trust for her absolutely. The basis of that claim is that she is the survivor of two joint tenants, herself and Arnold. Her claim is that in equity the property was held on a joint tenancy. In the second claim, which is brought under the Inheritance Provision for Family and Dependants Act 1975, she seeks as a supplementary or alternative claim that reasonable financial provision shall be made for her out of Arnold's estate.
The following are my findings of fact in relation to these claims. Arnold was an academic psychologist. Until some time in 1984 he taught at the University of Aberdeen. He established there an academic reputation for which he remained respected at his death. Between 1984 and 1986 he was the head of a mental health organisation in Glasgow. When he moved to Glasgow to take up that post he left his family in Aberdeen. It marks the beginning of the effective separation. Some time in 1986 or 1987 Arnold came down to Warwickshire. There he bought an ex-council house at 42 Shakespeare Avenue, Warwick. He continued a career both teaching and practising as a psychologist. The move to Warwickshire might in part have been prompted by a relationship with a woman named Alison which Arnold struck up whilst in Glasgow. This relationship ended and Alison married someone else, a matter which (according to Muriel Churchill) affected Arnold deeply.
In September 1989 Arnold was the head of Psychological Therapies for the South Birmingham Mental Health Trust and was working as an associate with a company called Human factors. Muriel Churchill took up employment with Human Factors and met Arnold. From then on they were work colleagues.
A friendship developed between Arnold and Muriel deepened by the death of Muriel's father. In January 1991 Muriel purchased her property at 7 Ferry Lane, Alveston for £66,500, funded with a mortgage in the sum of £60,000 from a local building society. The friendship between Arnold and Muriel blossomed, even though Arnold was then aged about 63 and Muriel 30 years his junior. It blossomed to such an extent that in December 1992 they became lovers and Muriel moved in to live with Arnold at Shakespeare Avenue. Arnold was not wholly committee to the relationship at that stage. There is one odd clue to this, and this is that in February 1993 Arnold renewed his passport. The person whom he asked to be notified in the event of an accident occurring to him was not Muriel, but his daughter Nicola. That degree of reservation was further exemplified when, in June 1993, Arnold asked Muriel to leave Shakespeare Avenue. This was not because of any difficulty in the relationship as such. The explanation that Arnold gave was that, if he lived with Muriel on a permanent basis seven days a week for more than six months, he thought that the law would consider Muriel to be his common law wife. He thought that that would entitle Muriel to an interest in his property. He felt that he was not ready for that degree of commitment. The result was that Muriel returned to 7 Ferry Lane, although she returned to Shakespeare Avenue to spend the weekends with Arnold.
During this period, that is from June 1993, the degree of contact between the two of them appears to have followed this pattern. For the core of the working week Muriel would work from 7 Ferry Lane and Arnold from Shakespeare Avenue. There would be occasions when Muriel would see clients at Shakespeare Avenue, but for the most part her visits there were of a social nature. She would come and stay the weekends, which may extend from Thursday through to Monday, or from Friday to Sunday, depending on the demands. For his part, Arnold would visit
7 Ferry Lane much less frequently, perhaps only once a month. Arnold kept all of his clothes and effects at Shakespeare Avenue. Muriel kept all of her clothes and effects at 7 Ferry Lane, except that she maintained a change of clothes for the weekends at Shakespeare Avenue. Visitors to Shakespeare Avenue, who used the spare room where Muriel kept her clothes, would not have been aware that she had clothes there. That is an indication of the quantity of clothing which she maintained at Shakespeare Avenue.
In the course of her evidence before the court, Muriel said that, between December 1992 and April 2003, if one took into account the periods that they lived together and took holidays together, she estimated that she spent approximately two-thirds of her time with Arnold. It is difficult to extract from that the true measure of the time spent together between June 1993 and December 1998, because from December 1992 until June 1993 and from December 1998 and April 2000 the parties were in fact living together. The impression, however, that I have from that evidence is that from June 1993 to December 1998 substantially less than two-thirds of their time was spent in one another's company, even including holidays.
Even after the separation in June 1993 the relationship between Arnold and Muriel continued to grow. There came a time in about 1996 where Arnold began to contemplate the possibility of spending more time with Muriel. This realisation may have dawned during a holiday that they spent together in Wales. But he appears to have taken the decision at that time that Muriel would occupy a more permanent place in his life than she hitherto had. Nonetheless, Arnold was still conscious of his responsibilities to his wife and to his family.
In December 1996 he sought financial advice about how he could provide for his wife and his children, including taking out a long term care policy to provide for his wife at the end of her days. In the material before me there is very little which provides a real insight into Arnold, his state of mind and his perspectives. I have to rely on clues such as his contacting a financial adviser in relation to such matters as I have outlined as providing me with some indicator as to Arnold's real concerns.
It was Muriel's evidence that, following this acceptance by Arnold that she may have a more permanent place in his life than hitherto, she began to spend more time in Warwick than at Alveston. Arnold was at this stage beginning to organise the legal separation of himself and Marjorie. In December 1997 he had plainly sought advice from a Scottish solicitor as to the consequences of severing his relationship with Marjorie. Included amongst the matters under consideration was the question of making a new will. The proposal was that, if Marjorie's and his affairs were separated out, then the will should effectively make provision by way of capital for the children. Arnold did not act on this advice. But it is typical of him, from what I can gather, that he should have been concerned both for his wife and for the long term stability of his children.
By January 1998 matters had moved on so far that Muriel and Arnold were prepared to contemplate buying a single property between them in order to live together. This additional development in their relationship may have been prompted by Arnold's 70th birthday. He had apparently hitherto been convinced that, like his father and his brother before him, he would die in his mid-60s. The approach of the 70th birthday made him realise that that was not to be and that he did indeed have a future. It was a future that he contemplated spending with Muriel, hence the proposal that he might sell up his own establishment, she might sell up hers, and they could establish a jointly funded joint home. Both of them placed their properties on the market. It is Muriel's evidence, which I accept, that when they were talking about buying a property together they had, in view of the age difference between them, contemplated that the property would be jointly owned with a...
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