Goddaughter of feminist prima ballerina says she was not in her right mind to leave estate to men

A feminist prima ballerina’s relatives are locked in a court battle over her will – after she left everything to her nephews.

Royal Ballet and Rambert dancer and choreographer Clover Roope died in April 2019, aged 81, leaving her whole estate to her brother’s two sons, Christopher and Simon Roope.

Her will was drawn up in 2011 and replaced a 2006 document which had originally handed a quarter share of her estate to Emma Hindmarsh, her goddaughter.

Now Ms Hindmarsh – the daughter of the ballerina’s closest friend Penelope Wreford – is now challenging the validity of the newest will.

She claims the fact men were involved in it being changed proves that Ms Roope had lost her mental capacity by the time it was made.

She says staunch feminist Ms Roope, who never married, always used women professionals to help her with her legal and financial matters and would not have enlisted men to help her write a new will.

Ms Roope was suffering from dementia when she died and her goddaughter says the condition must have been so advanced by 2011 that she didn’t know what she was doing.

But the ballerina’s nephews insist their aunt was in her right mind when she left them everything and have launched a High Court fight to uphold the later will.

The battle over Ms Roope’s fortune – which has not yet been valued due to the dispute over the will – is now set to be fought before a judge after papers in the case were filed at the London court.

Born in Bristol, Clover Roope was the daughter of Frederick Roope, a school teacher, and his wife, Rita.

She trained in ballet and her examiners at the Royal Academy of Dancing were so impressed they recommended she audition to become one of the first pupils at the prestigious Sadler’s Wells School when it opened in September 1947.

Her career was briefly derailed by anorexia, but she eventually joined the ballet of Sadler’s Wells Opera, dancing at Covent Garden Opera House.

While at the Royal Ballet, she also began a career in choreography, a very challenging proposition for a woman as the field was male-dominated in the 1950s and 60s.

Her first creation was a comic ballet, Le Farceur, to Jacques Ibert’s Divertissement, which drew critical acclaim.

In later years she taught dance and from 1979 headed the modern dance side of Rambert Academy at Twickenham, while living on a houseboat moored nearby.

Her struggles as a female choreographer in a male-dominated field in the mid 20th century led her to look to other women as her close friends and in professional positions of trust, her goddaughter says.

There is ‘no credible explanation’ why she would have used male legal and financial professionals to help her draw up the 2011 will cutting her out if she was in her right mind, insists Ms Hindmarsh, of Stratton St Margaret, Swindon, Wilts.

‘For the most part, the close friends of the deceased were other women. The deceased was always keen to have women dealing with her affairs wherever possible,’ says her barrister Stuart Roberts in papers submitted to London’s High Court.

‘That included her solicitor, who for many years was Stephanie Griffith, and her financial adviser was Toni Chalmers-Smith, who traded as ‘Finance for Women’.

‘For reasons which are entirely unclear the deceased is said to have gone to a financial advisor at Lloyds bank in April 2010 who was a male, who was not known to her, at a time when she had a continuing relationship with her long-standing female financial advisor.

‘There is no credible explanation as to why she would take such a step.

‘It is said by the claimants [the nephews] that she informed said financial advisor that she wished to make a new will in favour of the claimants.

‘There is no credible explanation as to why she would not have raised such an intention with her existing female solicitor, Stephanie Griffith,’ the barrister says.

Ms Hindmarsh has entered a caveat against the 2011 will, meaning probate cannot be granted until a judge has cleared up the dispute about its validity.

Mr Roberts says in the court documents: ‘It is denied that the 2011 will was the last will of the deceased. It is averred that the 2011 will was not a valid will.

‘The deceased did not have testamentary capacity to make the 2011 will and the deceased did not know and approve the contents thereof.

‘The defendant [Ms Hindmarsh] contends that the 2006 will was validly made and that the 2011 will was not valid.

‘The defendant was the goddaughter of the deceased and the defendant’s mother Penelope Wreford was the closest friend of the deceased throughout her life.

‘The lifelong friendship…began when they met at the age of 11 when they were at the Royal Ballet School together.

‘The deceased chose to live with the defendant’s mother at the same lodging house even though her own family lived in London.

‘The deceased also chose to spend most of the school holidays with the defendant’s mother and the defendant’s family, who the deceased treated as family.

‘The deceased always had a very close relationship and connection with the defendant.

‘At no stage was there any falling out between the deceased with either the defendant or the defendant’s mother.

‘The deceased always indicated to the defendant that she was a major beneficiary under her will.’

Ms Hindmarsh had previously been one of Ms Roope’s executors but ‘the deceased did not tell the defendant that she had made a new will in 2011 in which she decided not to appoint the defendant executor or leave her any share of her estate,’ he added.

‘The deceased is known to have made several wills before the 2011 will and in each case from 1999 onwards the defendant stood to benefit from one quarter of the residuary estate of the deceased.

‘She had a clear and settled intention to leave at least one quarter to the defendant.’

The barrister goes on to claim that from 2008 Ms Roope had ‘cognitive impairment, memory issues and confusion’.

He adds that in 2010 ‘the deceased had (a) meeting with Ms Chalmers-Smith at which she concluded that the deceased was not able to understand her finances and the matters under discussion’.

The ballerina had started to get ‘confused’ on trips out and before 2011 failed to recognise longstanding friends and couldn’t remember how to get to familiar places, Mr Roberts says, adding that she was diagnosed as having Alzheimers in 2012.

‘The 2011 will goes against the clear and settled intention of the deceased to leave one quarter of her residuary estate to the defendant and to appoint her as one of the executors of her estate.

‘There is no explanation for the change of heart on the part of the deceased and the reason why she decided not to leave any part of her estate to the defendant,’ he concludes.

But Edward Hewitt, for the nephews, is asking for the 2011 will to be propounded.

He says in papers submitted to the court: ‘The deceased had testamentary capacity to make the will and knew and approved its contents.

‘In the circumstances the claimant ask the court to pronounce for the force and validity of the will in solemn form of law.’

There has not yet been a court hearing in case and the contents of the court documents have yet to be tested in evidence before a judge.