‘Lazy’ daughter fights for share of late father’s £1.4m fortune

A pirate radio engineer’s “lazy” daughter is fighting her family for a share of his £1.4 million fortune after she was left with nothing.

Roger Howe died aged 55 in March 2020, after falling from a window, leaving behind a £1,447,000 estate, part of which was tied up in his radio engineering company BW Broadcast FM.

Mr Howe, a radio “legend” who played a key role in the urban pirate and independent radio scene, left his wealth to his mother, Rosina, his sister, Tina Tucker, and his two nephews, Ross and Jamie Tucker, but wrote his only child, beautician Jenna Howe, 37, out of his 2017 will.

When drafting his last will, he said he had decided to cut his daughter off because “she is lazy, grabbing and bad to my parents”. He is said to have felt “jubilation” about the decision by “making sure that (she) never gets a penny of mine”.

His daughter, who is recovering from periods of drug addiction, has now launched a claim for £443,000 for “reasonable provision” at Central London County Court, alleging that her life was overshadowed by his neglect and cruelty during her childhood.

Mr Howe built complex AM and FM transmitters by the time he was 15 and went on to develop technology for both commercial and military applications.

At 16, he was making rigs for London pirate radio stations. In his later years, he used his expertise to build a successful business which exported equipment all over the world and made him a millionaire by the time of his death.

But his relationship with his only child was troubled, the court heard. “Roger’s conduct weighs heavily in this case,” Ms Howe’s barrister James McKean told Judge Mark Raeside.

“His treatment of Jenna as a child and young adult has shaped the rest of her life, and a direct link can be drawn between that and her need for financial provision.”

Daughter ‘traumatised by father’s hatred’
Ms Howe suffered from bulimia and depression as a teenager and said her father was “not sympathetic to her needs” and she ended up drifting away from him.

One witness claimed Mr Howe had ended up viewing his only child with “unambiguous hatred” despite her attempts to reconcile, and branded her “grasping” and a “lazy, useless, lying druggie”.

Although Ms Howe has now overcome her addiction and rebuilt her life, training as a beautician, she was “truly traumatised by the way her father treated her”, the court heard

With her financial situation labelled “desperate”, she is now asking Judge Raeside to award her “reasonable financial provision” out of her father’s fortune in line with the 1975 Inheritance Act.

She seeks an award of about £450,000 to cover needs such as paying off over £66,000 in debts, £315,000 for a new home, £8,000 to launch her beautician career and £20,000 for a new car.

Ms Howe, whose mother was divorced from Mr Howe when Ms Howe was a child, added that she had done her best to reconcile with her father over the years and was badly rocked by his death.

Her barrister added that she had “saved for weeks” to buy lavish flowers for his funeral, adding that she had read a poem during the service after which he was buried with a picture of her.

But in her evidence, Ms Tucker, her aunt, said that when Mr Howe had offered his daughter a job at his company, he had complained about her work.

“He told me that when she was working she said, ‘I don’t need to bother because one day all this will be mine’ – which I think made him think about his will,” she said.

“He came home furious and said she was just painting her nails.”

Mr Howe had branded his daughter “lazy, grabbing and bad to my parents” when explaining his decision to cut her out of his will partly because he viewed her as idle, and partly because he felt she neglected her grandparents, Ms Tucker told the court.

“He tried with her to get her to work but she didn’t want to and he said to me that every time he just felt she was only there because she wanted his money,” Ms Tucker said.

Her brother’s hostility towards Ms Howe reached a point where “you couldn’t even mention her name in the house”, Ms Tucker said, adding: “He didn’t like her, Roger wasn’t involved that much in her life and had chosen to walk away.”

Ms Tucker said she had already spent £150,000 in lawyers’ fees fighting her niece in court, including a previous challenge brought by Ms Howe over the terms of Mr Howe’s will which ultimately ended in settlement. The case continues.