My 92-year-old dad SUED me after he gifted me £150,000 from life-changing £500k lottery win – it’s torn our family apart
A WOMAN who was gifted £150,000 from her dad’s lottery winnings has been left “destroyed” after he demanded she give the money back.
Sue Vourlides, 69, from Queensland, Australia, said her family has been torn apart after she was taken to court by William Bampton, 92, for “bullying” him into giving her the cash.
Mr Bampton, had initially refused to share a penny of his $986,212.30 (£508,042.85) winnings with his daughter in March 2018 because he didn’t want her husband, Jim, to get anything.
But five months later, after an angry confrontation, the pensioner relented and presented Mrs. Vourlides with a cheque for $300,000 (£154,543).
Three years down the line, however, Mr Bampton claimed he had given her the cash under duress and demanded the money be returned.
Mrs Vourlides said the dispute had crushed her family.
She told the Courier-Mail: “At the end of the day, I’m over it, quite frankly, it’s destroyed people’s lives.
“The whole thing is terrible.”
Court documents claimed that Mr Bampton had felt “overwhelmed” and was obliged to pay Mrs Vourlides “as a consequence of the behaviour of his daughter” during their argument in August 2018.
But the case was thrown out of court at Christmas after Judge Suzanne Sheridan said Mr Brampton – branded “strong-willed” in court – was incapable of being bullied by his daughter.
“It is difficult to imagine anyone being able to tell Mr Bampton what to do, or anyone so dominating his mind that he was prevented from exercising his free will,” she said.
The court documents stated Mr Brampton failed to prove he was at a “special disadvantage because of illness, ignorance, inexperience, impaired faculties or financial need”.
Mr Bampton has appealed the decision, the Courier Mail report, which remains before the courts.
The lottery winner’s son, Larry Bampton, has also been dragged into the ordeal.
Following his Tattslotto Golden Casket win, the elderly father put down a $50,000 (£25,757) deposit on a new home for, Larry, 66, less than two weeks later.
The following week, he paid off the remaining $505,000 (£260,148) on the four-bedroom house in Mountain Creek, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, to co-own the home with his son.
But following the dispute between his dad and sister, Larry says the pair no longer have any contact.
“No one’s a winner out of this, it just destroys everyone in the family,” he told the Courier Mail.
“The worst thing that ever happened was that he won the million dollars. One of the tragic lotto stories, I think.”
On Thursday, however, Mrs Vourlides lost her bid to have the court order her dad provide security for the costs of his appeal to the value of $50,000, news.com.au report.
In his ruling, Justice Philip Morrison found Mr Brampton’s assets, which included a 40 per cent stake in ownership of the unit he lives in at a retirement home, would cover any associated costs at trial.
But Mrs Vourlides raised concerns that her brother, who owns 60 per cent of the retirement unit, would “resist or delay” payment of costs if their father died.
The devastated daughter fears that her brother had “taken her father’s side in the litigation” and was “antagonistic” towards her.
But Justice Morrison shut down such concerns, stating the assertion is “not sufficient to raise the issue to any form of likelihood, nor to the point that it would lessen the force of the undertaking offered.”
The appeal will be heard at a later date.
