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singer Grandson 60s music icon Marianne Faithful He is caught up in a £400,000 court dispute between his mother and aunt – which centers on a bitter childhood grudge and “annoying” delays in burying a body.
Oscar Dunbar, grandson of Marianne Faithfull and artistJohn Dunbar, whom Faithfull married in 1965, was caught up in a dispute between his author mother, 61-year-old Carol Jahme, and his aunt, Patricia Tonge, 72, following the death of his two siblings in April 2022.
The “fiercely independent” Dorothy Jahme – Oscar’s other grandmother – died aged 97, leaving an estate of about £400,000, mainly tied up in her house in Axminster. devon,
Dorothy, a teenager evacuated from the London Blitz during the Second World War, was a well-known local figure around Axminster, where she lived for more than 40 years before her death.
But three years later, his estate – due to be divided between his two daughters and their children – has yet to be distributed as Carroll and Patricia have reached an impasse over its management, with Carroll accused of “irrational hostility” towards his sister based on a childhood grudge.
The case has now reached the High Court in London, where Patricia has successfully applied to remove her younger sister as executor. Oscar, who the court heard had taken a “back seat” to the entire dispute, was also removed from his co-executive role.
Carol Jahme, who was Marianne Faithfull’s daughter-in-law through her marriage to Faithfull’s journalist son, Nick Dunbar, has had a rich and varied career as a dancer, actor, TV producer, and writer of science fact and fiction – beginning as a trapeze artist and acrobat.
Marianne Faithfull, who died in January last year aged 78, had enjoyed a stellar career as a teen singing icon from the 1960s, during which she famously dated Mick Jagger before battling drug addiction – recovering from which she reinvented herself as an acclaimed singer once again in the 1980s.
His grandson, 32-year-old Oscar Dunbar, is the frontman of the indie-rock band, Khartoum, and he also collaborated with his grandson on the song “Love Is” from their posthumously released album “Burning Moonlight”.
Nathan Wells, barrister for Patricia and her daughter Samantha Tonge, said that Carroll had displayed “irrational hostility” towards Patricia in recent days – making unfounded allegations of childhood cruelty, “focusing on an incident in which she tied a plastic bag around her head”.
“Patricia says there’s no truth to it,” he said. Mr Wells also highlighted other behavior which he claimed was inappropriate for his role as executor, highlighting the persistent delays in Dorothy’s burial due to Carroll’s insistence that doctors change her death certificate.
“Carroll insisted that the cause of death should be stated as Covid 19, not pneumonia and dementia, and asked that the death certificate be changed,” the barrister claimed. “Their position was that the burial should not take place until the death certificate was changed.”
He said he did not believe burials should take place until the cause of death was known. “There was a delay of four months which was caused by his insistence that changes were required to the death certificate, to which nothing has been changed.”
Furthermore, the barrister said that there were question marks over transactions from Dorothy Lahme’s bank account at the time that Carroll had power of attorney over her mother’s affairs, and therefore there could have been a conflict of interest.
He told the court, “The claimants, having studied Dorothy’s statements, outlined transactions that require some sort of explanation – and on the face of them some of the payments do not appear to have been for the direct benefit of the deceased.”
“It appears they are benefiting either Carol or her family.” Some of the transactions from Dorothy’s account that “call for clarification” were made in Portugal in February 2019 – such as a payment for sunglasses – and were made when her mother was 94 and not used to traveling abroad.
And Carroll also failed to “join” Patricia and her daughter, Samantha, as co-executors of Dorothy’s will, which hindered its enforcement. He said both he and his son Oscar “have stepped aside from the administration of the estate without any suggestion that they will be involved again”.
Mr Wells admitted there was “no suggestion” that Oscar Dunbar had any involvement in the possible mismanagement of Dorothy’s bank account, but added: “The real concern about Mr Dunbar is his continued inaction as executor”.
After a two-hour hearing, Master Katherine McQuail agreed that there were grounds to strip the mother and son of the executor roles, although stressed: “It is not for me to find the facts or resolve disputes and wrongdoing”.
Commenting on the execution of Oscar Dunbar, he said that the singer did not oppose his expulsion, adding: “As far as he is concerned, it is clear that he has always regarded himself as taking a back seat to his mother and aunts, and he does not oppose the expulsion application”.
But focusing on Carol Jahme, he told the court: “From all this one can conclude that she is not capable of running the administration of this estate in a proper manner, impartially and conscientiously.”
Addressing Carroll’s past handling of his mother’s finances, the judge said: “These matters, although I make no findings, give rise to genuine questions and appear to raise claims with a real prospect of success.”
At the end of the hearing, the judge removed Carol Jahme and her son as executors, directing that they should be replaced by a professional lawyer who would act as executor in their place.