We thought we’d uncovered Dad’s biggest secret, but as he lay dying another one was waiting for us. By Terri Stromeyer, 62
Walking into the glamorous venue, I felt proud to be on my dad Terry’s arm.
‘We’re a team,’ he said with a grin, as we began mingling with the guests.
Dad, a steel broker, was
at a work event and, as my mum Nancy preferred to stay at home, I was his plus-one for the evening.
My charming and vivacious dad had always been my hero.
When my sister Penny and I were little, no matter how busy he was with work, he’d found time for fun too.
He’d play cowboys with us, creating a magical make-believe world.
Now I was older, I loved going to events with him and admired his easy charm as he chatted to clients.
But over the next years, something changed in him. He grew distant from Mum, sometimes not even returning home at night.
Someone kept calling the house too and putting the phone down if Mum answered.
Then one day, Penny called and said, ‘I saw Dad kissing Sue after she got into his car.’
I gasped. Sue Whitehead had been Dad’s solicitor for years, but now there seemed
to be more to their relationship than work.
Furious, Penny had marched over to the car.
‘I told her to get out of Mum’s seat,’ she said.
Fresh from the upsetting incident, she’d called me.
‘How could Dad do that to Mum – and us!’ I fumed.
Suddenly my hero dad felt like someone I barely knew.
‘You’re having an affair,’ I said to him, a few days later. ‘You’re breaking up our family.’
‘It’s not what you think,’ Dad insisted. ‘Sue just works for me.’
He didn’t have the decency to own up to it.
'I told her to get out of Mum's seat'
By now, Mum knew too. But while the betrayal crushed her, scared to lose our family home she chose to turn a blind eye.
I was too furious to even speak to Dad.
‘I feel like I’ve lost him,’
I told Penny, heartbroken.
Years passed
and their affair continued. They would spend every Friday night together in a hotel. We thought it was odd that Sue never demanded more.
But when Mum suffered a stroke and ended up in a care home, I worried what would happen when she passed away. Would Dad marry Sue?
Scared that would mean we’d lose Dad to her completely, I tried to build some bridges.
So I arranged to go for dinner with him and Sue.
‘Hopefully we can put our differences behind us,’ I told Dad.
But it was a disaster. Sue was frosty from the start, refusing to talk about her relationship with Dad.
Penny and I were devastated when Mum died months later.
And with her gone, Sue seemed to have an even tighter grip on Dad.
Once strong and decisive, now he couldn’t make a decision without checking with Sue first.
Yet they never married. She didn’t even move in, always keeping him at arm’s length somehow, which left Dad lonely and frustrated as his own health declined.
‘If you truly loved someone, you’d want to spend time with them, especially in their twilight years,’
I said to Penny.
After suffering a stroke, Dad was diagnosed with dementia. Tests showed he had cognitive impairment, which meant he struggled with memory, reasoning and decision-making.
Yet he refused to accept – and was unable to due to his dementia – how poorly he was. He remained at home and wouldn’t allow carers in, relying on family instead.
Dad was outraged too when his driving licence was withdrawn on the advice of his GP and we discovered Sue was trying to help him get it back.
She got a second opinion from a consultant, but hadn’t provided Dad’s full medical history, telling the doctor Dad’s stroke had been mild and that he’d made a full recovery.
Thankfully his GP intervened when we told her.
Soon after, I stumbled across Dad’s will. Not only had Sue helped him draw it up and been made executor, she also stood to benefit from a third of his estate.
‘I don’t think he knew what he was signing,’ I told Penny.
And then I discovered something even more shocking. For the 40-odd years Sue and Dad had been seeing each other, she’d been in a long-term relationship.
I had to tell Dad, so after taking him for a haircut, we went to a cafe and over a cuppa, I said, ‘There’s no easy way to say this, but Sue’s living with another man.’
He broke down in tears.
‘She’s made a fool out of me,’ he wept, as I hugged him.
He looked
so frail and vulnerable, but later his old determination came back as he told me he wanted Sue out of his life – and his will.
On Dad’s instruction, I emailed Sue telling her to stop all contact.
Dad then drafted a new will, but the following day, he fell ill and was admitted to hospital.
When staff told us Sue had been calling, we set up a password callers had to give to get information about Dad, which only a handful of people had.
Sue pretended to be a close family friend to get around that, but we later found out after a nurse became suspicious, took down the number and reported it to us.
And when Dad discharged himself, I suspected Sue was still contacting him.
'There's no easy way to say this'
Months later, he was back in hospital again and this time, we knew the end was near.
After a couple of days at his bedside, Penny and I popped back to Dad’s to get him some warm socks. But reaching into his drawer, I came across a sheaf of papers.
Opening it, I gasped. It was another will, written by another firm of lawyers, where Sue had been awarded the lion’s share of his estate – almost £1million – while Penny and I were left virtually nothing.
On the first page, there was a note that read, I declare that at the date of my will I am expecting to be married to Sue Whitehead.
‘She’s let him believe she’s going to marry him, so she gets his money,’ I raged.
Fuming, we headed back to the hospital, but as we walked into Dad’s room, I looked at him and knew.
‘He’s dead, Penny,’ I said, as anger gave way to tears.
We had to challenge the will we’d found in court and as we sifted through papers, texts and emails for the case, we made more discoveries.
When Sue learnt about the will that cut her out, she’d backdated a document giving her Lasting Power of Attorney, so that it appeared to have been signed before that new will.
Then she helped him make the will we’d found in his sock drawer, directing him to use a firm of solicitors she knew wouldn’t carry out mental capacity checks.
Alongside our court action, we took our case to the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA).
And after a gruelling three-year legal fight which cost us both financially and emotionally, we got justice for Dad and our family.
First, the SRA struck Sue off for dishonesty. After that, she didn’t challenge our claim and the case was settled in our favour out of court.
Recently, when clearing Dad’s house, my nephew Johnny and I found a card Sue had given Dad that read, Terry, you’re not getting older, just increasing in value.
‘That sums up everything about her,’ I said.
Now we’re sharing our story to warn families that solicitors can take advantage of the trust placed in them, particularly by the elderly.
We’re also calling on the SRA to ban their members from drafting wills for clients they’re in a relationship with.
Sue took advantage of an ailing man and denied me a proper relationship with my father. And it’s the time I’ll never get back with him that hurts the most.