Destitute Millionaire's daughter finally gets her day in Court.

In sending this press release, I would like to point out that I would very much value press interest in the Oral Hearing at the Court of Administration on 26th June 2006.
1. The time of the Hearing will not be available until the after 2.30 on Friday 23rd June 2006, when it will be put up on the Court Web Site at
 http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.ukcms/list_admin.htmI
Also it can be acessed by ringing
Adminstrative Court List Office 0207947 6297/6304/6513.
Case Reference number: CO/7888/2005
I feel that the matter of my father's untimely death has very public interest, especially in view of the determined afforts to legalise euthanasia, with all the ramifications for anyone old or ill and in possession of any sorth of wealth.
More information can be found at  http://ralphwinstanleyofwath.blogspot.com
or by contacting me at  ralphwinstanley@yahoo.co.uk - 0156 572 2738 - 07050 183 417
Charlotte Peters Rock
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PRESS RELEASE: 19th June 2006
FROM: Charlotte Peters Rock,
Holly House, Middlewich Road, Allostock, Knutsford, Cheshire. WA16 9JX
0156 572 2738 – 07050 183 417 –  charlottepetersrock@tiscali.co.uk
TO: General release.
‘Destitute millionaire’s’ daughter finally gets her day in Court.
On 18th April 2004, when they were summoned to their elderly father’s deathbed, Ralph Winstanley’s two daughters, didn’t realise just how much their lives would be taken over by that event
Mr Winstanley, died in mysterious circumstances on 23rd April 2004. Officers of South Yorkshire Police Force were also present at his death, at Grange Farm, Pinfold Lane, Moss, Doncaster.
His second wife, Nina Ann Clayton, had claimed that Mr Winstanley had not lived at Grange Farm for 6 years prior to his death. So why did he die at Grange Farm?
HM Coroner ES Hooper, of South Yorkshire East District, who opened the inquest on 6th May 2004, opted not to inform Mr Winstanley’s daughters of the date of that event. However, they found out and attended the inquest.
Coroner Hooper refused, for 12 months, to ask for a police investigation into matters surrounding the death of Mr Winstanley. He finally recused himself from the Inquest; handing the file over at the Bottesford home of his good friend of 20 years, Paul Kelly.
Styled variously as Deputy and Assistant Deputy Coroner, North Lincs and Grimsby District, Paul Kelly spent a further 6 months refusing to ask for a police investigation.
At the inquest, held in Scunthorpe Coroners Court on 5th October 2005, Mr Kelly found that Mr Winstanley had died of ‘natural causes’.
Ralph Winstanley’s blood family dispute that verdict. They will all be present at the Court of Administration, in pursuit of a Judicial Review, on Monday 26th June 2006.
Elder daughter, Charlotte Peters Rock, is bringing an Application for Judicial Review, because she feels that Paul Kelly did not allow adequate - and vital - evidence to be admitted to the inquest. She also disputed Mr Kelly’s claim that a jury was not necessary, stating that in the ‘public interest’ a jury should have been sworn.
The Coroners Act 1988 states that a jury needs to be summoned if there is reason to suspect:
“3d that the death occurred in circumstances the continuance or possible recurrence of which is prejudicial to the health and safety of the public or any section of the public.”
“My father died under the ‘care’ of three NHS Trusts. That means that what happened to him could also happen to other old, ill and otherwise vulnerable people – especially those who have any money in their own names,” said Mrs Peters Rock.
“I find it utterly shocking that anyone would think that this was not a matter of public interest. There is no bringing my father back to life. He has been dead for more than two years now. But what about other people? Do they not warrant a full investigation of how he died, following the intervention of three NHS Trusts? Who cares about their interests?”
Mrs Peters Rock is supported by all of Ralph Winstanley’s blood children; elder brother, Ralph Winstanley, younger sister, Linda Kirby and brother Richard Winstanley.
“ As his medical records show, my father, Ralph Winstanley, was not dying. Also, he did not appear, on the 18th April 2004, as if he might be dying. He was walking about and not in pain. He was able to eat and drink and hold a sensible conversation. Yet, following the intervention of nurses, sent by the on-call doctor service, their drugs cocktail and two syringe-drivers, he died.”
“At that time he was under the care of Doncaster East Primary Care Trust, Doncaster Central Primary Care Trust and Doncaster and South Humber NHS Trust. Doctors and nurses from all three Trusts were involved in my father’s final days of life.
“I feel that the Directors and Chief Executives of those Trusts and of South Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority have behaved disgracefully, ever since his death. They have refused to deal with us in any meaningful way, to resolve the problem of their appalling system.”
“They have deliberately blackened my name, by calling police officers to public meetings in order to threaten me, when I have never once disrupted any of their meetings; unless asking questions during question time, at the invitation of the Chairman of the Meeting counts as ‘disruption’.
“The person responsible for that behaviour, is the Chief Executive of South Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority, Alan Wittrick. At the standard of wages which he is paid, (£110-120,000 a year - see  http://www.southyorkshire.nhs.uk/annualreport/SHA_Annual_Report_05.pdf - page 44), I would expect that someone with a better responsibility for his actions should be employed.”
“I want a full investigation into what happened, to cause my father’s death but also in respect of his stated destitution and the terrible time we have had with the authorities ever since we had to watch him die,” said Mrs Peters Rock.
“We have new evidence, which backs up a great deal of the medical record, which was available to both Coroners and to South Yorkshire Police, and which they refused to take into account.”
“My father might have been 83 years old, but he had not been dying nor close to death, before health service intervention. In view of the appalling way he died, I want to ensure that no-one else has to suffer such a death, and I will continue with this until we gain justice.”
Ralph Winstanley, was said to have been dying of oesophageal cancer. His pathology Report shows he did not have oesophageal cancer. Yet he was given ‘terminal care’, which he resisted. It was whilst under the ‘care’ of doctors and nurses from three NHS Trusts, that he died in his bed at Grange Farm.
South Yorkshire Police were at the farm as he died. They had been called by Mrs Peters Rock.
Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Superintendent Robert Haworth, refused to investigate the death, stating,
“It is not South Yorkshire Police policy to investigate any suspicious death, unless the Coroner requests it. The Coroner has not asked us to investigate this death.”
Mrs Peters Rock and her sister, Mrs Linda Kirby, state that they have asked South Yorkshire Police on many occasions, to investigate their father’s death.
“We gave the police a large amount of proof, in financial and Court documents and medical records. My sister and I, who were at Grange Farm for most of the last six days and nights of our father’s life, gave them fully sworn Affidavits. They have just refused to do anything. It is as if they don’t have a duty to keep the public safe. Yet they state that, in South Yorkshire, they have less than half of the suspicious deaths of any other police area. Well, they would have, wouldn’t they, if they never investigate a suspicious death? I feel that the actions of Meredydd Hughes, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, should be investigated. What does this man think he is employed for?”
Mrs Peters Rock and her sister have spent the last two years investigating their father’s death for themselves, with the help of their two brothers. When the Application is brought to the Court there will be no legal representation because they cannot afford it.
Mrs Peters Rock states:
“My husband is now 78 years old. His pension would cover the costs of solicitors and barristers and I would object to having to pay a solicitor, when there are so many people who are in theory paid to investigate such deaths. I have hadto learn how to do thisfor myself. It has been very time consuming and difficult and I feel that I will be at a great disadvantage as a litigant–in-person. But what else can I do?”
“We have been told that my father, who held family money in trust, was destitute when he died. His second wife, Nina Ann Clayton, took great pleasure in telling us that, over and over again, as he became closer to death. Why should my father have been destitute?
“We have become aware, since his death, that other people were running his affairs, possibly for many years. Are they responsible for this ‘destitution’? If so, why?”
Ralph Winstanley had retired in 1987, suddenly selling the family firm, Mowing Machine Grinders (Exports) Ltd, (formerly Mowing Machine Maintenance), to Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies, of Ipswich.
The firm had been built up, at Wath-upon-Dearne, by Mr Winstanley and his two sons; using the inventions and work of his elder son Ralph, and his younger son, Richard.
Latterly, Richard had run the business, at Wet Moor Lane, and as a Director, was shocked that it was suddenly to be sold. The sale brought in around £2 million. Shortly after, as suddenly as he had sold the business, Ralph senior re-married in Antigua. His second wife, Nina Ann Clayton, made it her business to divorce Mr Winstanley not only from his first wife, but also from his own blood family.
Taking most of the money from the sale, Ralph Winstanley consulted his financial advisors, WH Prior & Son of Doncaster and his solicitors, Paul and Martin Pennington now of Frank Allen Pennington of Doncaster, and stated in 1989, that he was to become a tax exile in Tenerife, where he owned two properties.
Shortly after that, on 4th January 1991, Ralph Winstanley was facing severe marital problems. As an emergency measure, he converted the tenancy agreement on his property at Manor Farm, Moss, Doncaster, which was held by his younger son, Richard, into a secure Agricultural Tenancy. He took the Deeds to the property away from the Penningtons, for safekeeping and gave them to his son.
Within a few weeks, on 25th February 1991, Ralph senior was stripped of everything he possessed, by a draconian action (91D222), at Doncaster County Court, taken by his new wife, Nina Ann Clayton. Ralph was not in Court, nor was he represented. It is not known what else happened around that time, but his family believes that should the Court allow full disclosure of documents, they will probably show that his finances were never totally within his control since that action.
Far from being able to farm the land, as his father had intended, Richard was then faced with a 15 year series of Court Hearings, the destruction of his home and his security; and threats and actual violence to his property and his person. He was illegally bankrupted by actions taken by the Pennington brothers, and had to go as far as the Royal Courts of Justice to get that bankruptcy overturned. (Friday 23rd March 2001, before Lords Justice Mummery and Aldous)
The Court Hearings against Richard, were even being pushed, by Martin Pennington and Nina Clayton, against Ralph Winstanley’s wishes, as he lay, drugged into unconscious, which led to his death. Court actions continued after death, even though a ‘caveat’ on his estate meant that no-one had any right to represent his interests, until probate had been effected.
Nina Clayton and her co-executor, Mr Brian Shields, of Rippingale, Bourne, Lincs, produced what they called a ‘will’. However, following the issuing of at least 6 Interim Death Certificates by Coroner Hooper, in 2004, they finally stood down in March 2005.
Mrs Peters Rock laughed, saying, “It is the most inaccurately styled will I have ever seen. Its content indicated that my father didn’t really know his own daughter, Linda or her family. Yet they were very close and always had been. It seems he couldn’t even remember my sister’s second name, which he chose for her. As jokes go, that ‘will’ is more of a colander than a legal document. I would be very surprised if my father had had anything to do with it – or even knew of it. But someone went to the trouble of banging it together, on 17th February, 2004, only two months before he died. Solicitors Bridge Sanderson Munro helped to make it up.”
“I want to make it clear, that I have never had any expectations of any inheritance from my father,” said Mrs Peters Rock. “I am content with that. But I do not see why my brothers and sister, all of whom built the wealth of the family business, should suffer because someone seems to have fleeced their father. Also, my mother’s alimony still has not been paid. She is owed more than two years of payments and is legally entitled to them. Perhaps I can point out that for the last four years of my father’s life those payments came from an account marked ‘NA Clayton’. Does that show where my father’s money went?”
Whatever the truth of the situation, it seems that Ralph Winstanley’s ‘friends’ aren’t saying.
“When, whilst he was still alive, we asked them for help, they seemed to know that my father would be dead at the end of it. They tried to drive us away from the house. These are people my father had known, and socialised with at the Badsworth Hunt and the Welsh Pony and Cob Society, for many years. Many had stayed at his houses in Tenerife Yet they seem not to care at all about his welfare. I found it quite shocking, that a man who has lived for 83 years, cannot count on his friends to help him in such circumstances. ”
If the Application for Judicial Review is successful, there is then expected to be another wait, until the Judicial Review takes place. Should it not be successful, an Appeal will be made.
It seems that the tale of the Destitute Millionaire still has a long way to go.
ENDS