When Belief Is Not Enough: What A Recent High Court Case Reveals About Accusations, Delusions And Invalid Wills

Disputes over a Will often begin long before anyone steps into a courtroom. They begin with a shift in relationships, a breakdown in trust, or a growing sense that something is not quite right.

In Ginger v Mickleburgh [2026] EWHC 100 (Ch), the High Court was asked to examine exactly that kind of situation. At its centre was a man who, in the later years of his life, became increasingly convinced that those around him were acting against him. What began as concerns about neighbours developed into something far more serious. He reported late-night disturbances, believed his property was being interfered with, and spent nights patrolling his land to guard against perceived intruders.

Those beliefs did not remain contained. Over time, they shifted closer to home. He came to believe that his own daughters were involved in a wider conspiracy against him, that they were attempting to have him sectioned and take control of his assets.

Those beliefs shaped his decisions, including a significant change to his Will. Where once his estate would likely have passed to his daughters, the new Will reduced their entitlement to a fraction of its value and instead favoured other family members, including his sister and former partner.

After his death, the daughters challenged the validity of that Will. What followed was not simply a question of whether the document had been properly executed, but a much more difficult inquiry into belief, influence, and the extent to which the law can intervene when those two become entangled.

A dispute shaped by influence and illness

The case raised uncomfortable but familiar questions. The testator had not acted in isolation. His sister and former partner remained closely involved in his life and, on the evidence, supported his increasingly negative views about his daughters. They repeated allegations that the daughters were acting for their own financial gain and encouraged him to take steps which ultimately led to the preparation of the Will.

From the daughters’ perspective, this was not simply a case of their father changing his mind. It was a situation in which his thinking had been shaped, reinforced and, in their view, manipulated.

That led to two distinct legal arguments. First, that their father lacked testamentary capacity because his beliefs were the product of a disorder of the mind. Second, that those around him had “poisoned” his thinking through what the law terms fraudulent calumny.

What is “fraudulent calumny”?

Despite its archaic name, fraudulent calumny describes a very real concern. The law recognises that a person’s decisions about their Will can be influenced by what they are told about those closest to them.

If someone deliberately feeds a testator false information about a family member, particularly where it casts that person in a negative light, and does so knowing it is untrue or without caring whether it is true, the resulting Will may be set aside. In those circumstances, the testator is not acting on a true understanding of the people around them, but on a picture that has been deliberately distorted.

However, the law draws a careful line. It is not enough to show that statements were made and that they were wrong. The court must be satisfied that they were made dishonestly. In other words, they must not have believed what they were saying.

That distinction is critical. The law does not intervene simply because a testator has been given a misleading or unfair impression. It intervenes where that impression has been created through deliberate falsehood.

Why fraudulent calumny was not established

In Ginger v Mickleburgh, the court accepted that the sister and former partner had played an active role in shaping the testator’s views. They had repeated serious allegations about the daughters and encouraged him to make a Will which was less favourable to them.

Even so, the claim based on fraudulent calumny failed.

The reason lay in belief. The court was not persuaded that those making the allegations had acted dishonestly. However unreasonable or detached from reality those views may have been, there was insufficient evidence that they did not genuinely believe them.

This is a striking aspect of the case. Influence alone is not enough. Even a clear intention to affect the terms of a Will is not enough. Without proof of dishonesty, of statements made without belief in their truth, the legal threshold for fraudulent calumny is not met.

The real issue: testamentary capacity

Although the claim based on fraudulent calumny did not succeed, the challenge to the Will did not end there. The court turned instead to the testator’s state of mind.

The evidence painted a concerning picture. The testator had been detained under the Mental Health Act earlier in 2014 and was later found to be suffering from a psychiatric condition associated with persistent delusions. Those delusions included a fixed belief that his daughters were conspiring against him, stealing from him and seeking to have him sectioned for their own financial gain.

Crucially, those beliefs were not grounded in reality. They were found to be irrational and resistant to contrary evidence.

While the test for testamentary capacity remains to be that set out in the historic case of Banks v Goodfellow [1870] LR 5 QB 549, concerns like this draw to the point that to make a valid Will, a person must be able to assess the claims of those who might expect to benefit from their estate. If that assessment is affected by any “disorder of the mind” that “poison’s the testator’s affections, perverts their sense of right, or prevents the exercise of their natural faculties” then there are grounds upon which to challenge the Will’s validity.  

In the present case, the court concluded that the testator’s decisions were directly shaped by beliefs that were the product of a disorder of the mind and that without those delusions, it was unlikely that the Will would have been made in the same way, or at all.

On that basis, the Will was declared invalid.

Two routes, one outcome

What makes this case particularly instructive is the way in which these two strands of law sit alongside one another.

On one view, the allegations about the daughters did not amount to fraudulent calumny because there was no dishonesty. Those involved were not found to have deliberately misled the testator.

On another, the beliefs themselves were legally significant in a different way. They were not simply mistaken. They were delusional, and that was enough to undermine testamentary capacity.

The case shows how the law distinguishes between external wrongdoing and internal impairment. Both can affect the validity of a Will, but they operate in different ways and require different evidence. This case stands out successful “delusion” claims are few and far between and help to paint a picture of what the necessary components are for a claim based on delusion in testamentary capacity context.

A reminder of what sits behind these cases

By the time cases like this reach the court, they are rarely just about a document. They reflect a breakdown in trust, a shift in perception, and often a period of vulnerability which may not have been fully recognised at the time.

For those preparing a Will, this case underlines the importance of careful advice and clear records, particularly where there are signs of strained relationships or concerns about capacity. For families, it highlights how beliefs, once formed, can take hold and reshape relationships in ways that are difficult to reverse.

Ginger v Mickleburgh does not suggest that the law will step in whenever a Will feels unfair. Its role is more limited, but no less important. It intervenes where a Will cannot properly be treated as a reliable expression of a person’s intentions. In this case, not because others acted dishonestly, but because those intentions had been shaped by delusion rather than reality.

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