Self-confessed 'daddy's girl' daughter of tyre mogul with £55million fortune ... trends now
A self-confessed 'daddy's girl' daughter is fighting in court after being left 'dumfounded' when cut out of her tycoon father's millions in a 'secret' will.
Self-made millionaire Reg Bond turned £350 into a fortune based on a rubber tyre empire before turning his hand to racehorse training and breeding, producing a string of winners, many of which bore his family name.
He died in March 2021, aged 77, and his four children - sons Graham, Charlie and Mike, and only daughter Lindsay - are now battling over the validity of his last will.
Mr Bond had given much of his fortune away before he died, but his final will, made in November 2019, handed nearly all of his remaining £12.3million to Charlie, 43, and Graham, 52.
This left older siblings Mike, 53, and 55-year-old Lindsay with just £325,000 each.
Reg Bond made his fortune from a rubber tyre empire and also became a successful racehorse breeder before his death which is at the centre of a new battle in London's High Court
Lindsay Bond is battling with her siblings over her late father's fortune
They are now fighting their two younger brothers in London's High Court, claiming their father's 2019 will was invalid because he was too ill to understand what he was signing.
Charlie's glamorous solicitor wife Kate Atkinson-Bond yesterday insisted she had no doubts about her millionaire father-in-law’s mental capacity when he left her husband and his brother £5.8million.
But Lindsay, who the court heard describes herself as a 'daddy's girl,' says she and brother Mike were 'dumbfounded' when they found out the contents of the will.
They claim there was a 'plan' to keep the making of Reg's disputed new will 'secret' from them and say the circumstances of its making were 'highly suspicious'.
But their brothers are fighting the claim, insisting their father's mind was fine and that doctors' records prove it.
They claim that there was a rift between Reg and Lindsay in his final months, accusing their sister of being 'penny pinching' and 'undermining Reg's independence'.
London's High Court heard that 'hard-nosed businessman' Reg made his own luck and turned misfortune on its head after he was blinded in one eye by a shard of flying metal, aged 22, whilst working as a mechanic.
He used his £350 compensation cash for the injury to set himself up in a car parts business alongside his father, beginning from a small garage in Pocklington, Yorkshire, in the 1960s.
That business developed into Bond International Tyres, which over the subsequent decades Reg built up, turning it into one of the UK's largest wholesalers, selling over five million tyres a year.
As his business grew, he also turned his hand to becoming a successful race horse owner and breeder.
He realised a childhood dream by buying his first horse Bond Boy in 2002, which went on to win the Steward's Cup.
He went on to produce a string of winners from his stud farm at Yapham Mill, in Pocklington, including Monsieur Bond who won the coveted Duke of York Stakes in 2004.
He also made headlines when he paid £125,000 to have his star breeding mare Forever Bond mated with unbeaten flat race legend Frankel in 2014.
Charlie Bond and his wife Katie Atkinson-Bond, who has been dragged into the sibling battle
But tragedy struck in 2010 when Reg was diagnosed with a brain tumour, before his wife Betty died in 2015.
The court heard he began estate planning two years later in 2017, handing over £43.45million-worth of shares in R&RC Bond Wholesale Ltd - the family company behind Bond International - equally to his four kids.
The gift amounted to 80 per cent of Mr Bond's shares in the company, and in 2017 he made a will dividing most of the rest of his fortune - amounting to £12.3m, including the rest of his shares - equally between his children too, with Charlie getting his horses.
But in 2019, two years before his death, he made a final will, handing his remaining £11million shareholding in the company to Charlie and Greg alone.
The remaining £1.3million in his estate, including the horses, was divided equally, leaving Mike and Lindsay with inheritances worth around £325,000 each and their younger brothers £5.825m each.
Lawyers for Mike and Lindsay Bond say their father 'lacked testamentary capacity' when he made his last will in November 2019, highlighting the fact he had been suffering from a brain tumour since 2010.
They want the court to overrule the 2019 will and reinstate the previous will from 2017, also alleging that his last will is 'invalid for want of knowledge and approval'.
Their barrister Penelope Reed told Mr Justice Michael Green that, as well as the brain tumour, Mr Bond suffered from a fall in his garden in 2014 which led to pneumonia and other serious complications, leaving him needing 'full-time care'.
She added: 'Reg was vulnerable and reliant on his carers.
'There is a
