Family of 60s icon Marianne Faithfull in £400k inheritance row sparked by ‘childhood grudge’

The singer grandson of 60s music icon Marianne Faithfull has been caught up in a £400,000 court row between his mum and aunt - centred on a bitter childhood grudge and “distressing” delays in burying a dead body.

Oscar Dunbar, the grandson of Marianne Faithfull and artist, John Dunbar, who Faithfull married in 1965, was sucked into the row between his writer mother, Carole Jahme, 61, and aunt, Patricia Tonge, 72, after the death of the two siblings’ own mother in April 2022.

“Profoundly independent” Dorothy Jahme - Oscar's other grandmother - died aged 97, leaving an estate valued at around £400,000, mainly bound up in her home in Axminster, Devon.

Dorothy, a teenage evacuee from the London Blitz during World War Two, was a well-known local figure around Axminster, where she had lived for over 40 years before her death.

But three years later, her estate - set to be divided between her two daughters and their children - has yet to be distributed as Carole and Patricia have reached deadlock over its management, with Carole being accused of “irrational hostility” towards her sister based on a childhood grudge.

The case has now reached London’s High Court, with Patricia successfully applying for her younger sister to be removed as an executor. Oscar, who the court heard has taken a “back seat” throughout the dispute, was also removed from his co-executor role.

open image in gallery

Carole Jahme, who was Marianne Faithfull’s daughter-in-law through her marriage to Faithfull’s journalist son, Nick Dunbar, has carved out a rich and varied career as a dancer, actor, TV producer and writer of science fact and fiction - having started out as a trapeze artist and acrobat.

Marianne Faithfull herself died in January last year, aged 78, having enjoyed a stellar career as a teenage singing icon from the 1960s, during which she famously dated Mick Jagger before later battling drug addiction - from which she overcame to rebuild herself once more as an acclaimed singer in the 1980s.

Her grandson, Oscar Dunbar, 32, is frontman with the indie-rock band, Khartoum, and also collaborated with his gran on her “Love Is” song from her posthumously released album “Burning Moonlight”.

Nathan Wells, barrister for Patricia and her daughter, Samantha Tonge, said Carole had displayed “irrational hostility” towards Patricia in recent times - having raised unfounded accusations of childhood cruelty, focusing on “an incident in which she tied a plastic bag around her head”.

“Patricia says there is no truth to this,” he added. Mr Wells also highlighted other behaviour which he claimed was inappropriate for her executor role, highlighting chronic delays in Dorothy’s burial due to Carole’s insistence that medics must change her death certificate.

“Carole insisted that the death certificate should give the cause of death as Covid 19 and not pneumonia and dementia, and said the death certificate should be changed,” claimed the barrister. “Her position was that the burial should not be held until the death certificate was changed.”

open image in gallery

She explained that she didn’t believe the burial should take place until the cause of death was ascertained. “There was a four-month delay which was caused by her insistence that there needed to be a change in the death certificate, which doesn’t seem to have changed anything.”

On top of this, the barrister said there were question marks over transactions from Dorothy Lahme’s bank account at a time when Carole had power of attorney over her mum’s affairs, and so might have had a conflict of interest.

“The claimants went through Dorothy’s statements, setting out the transactions which require some kind of explanation - and looking at some of the payments on their face, they don’t appear to be for the direct benefit of the deceased,” he told the court.

“They appear to either benefit Carole or her family.” Some of the transactions from Dorothy’s account which “call for an explanation” were made in February 2019 in Portugal - such as a payment for sunglasses - and were made when her mum was aged 94 and not in the habit of jetting abroad.

And Carole had also failed to “engage” with Patricia and her daughter, Samantha, as the co-executors of Dorothy’s will, which thwarted it being put into effect. He said both she and her son, Oscar, had “stepped away from the administration of the estate with no suggestion that they will re-engage”.

open image in gallery

Mr Wells accepted there was “no suggestion” that Oscar Dunbar had any involvement in possible mismanagement of Dorothy’s bank account, but added: “the real concern about Mr Dunbar is his sustained inactivity” as executor.

After a two-hour hearing, Master Katherine McQuail agreed there were grounds for stripping the executor roles from mother and son, although stressing: “it’s not for me to find facts or resolve disputes and wrongdoing”.

Commenting on Oscar Dunbar’s executorship, she said the singer did not contest his removal, adding: “so far as he is concerned, it’s apparent that he always regarded himself as taking a seat further back from his mother and aunt, and he doesn’t contest the removal application”.

But focusing on Carole Jahme, she told the court: “One can deduce from all this that she is not able fairly and conscientiously to carry out the administration of this estate in a proper manner.”

Addressing Carole’s past handling of her mum’s finances, the judge added: “These matters, although I make no finding, do seem to give rise to real questions and to making a claim with a real prospect of success.”

At the end of the hearing, the judge removed Carole Jahme and her son as executors, directing they should be replaced by a professional lawyer who will act as executor in their place.