In my last blog I said “the season of goodwill isn’t just for Christmas. Let’s see how 2013 develops…” Well a family in Cardiff clearly hadn’t read my blog! Alas this is a true story reported in several papers this week. If I hadn’t read this in the Mail On Line I wouldn’t have believed it was true: “Father of 6 destroys his own £300,000 family home with a sledgehammer after falling out with his brother in seven-year row over inheritance”. So instead of splitting the inheritance in two when they couldn’t agree – he split the house in two!
This of course is a case that “screamed out for mediation”. When you look behind the “tabloid” story, the outcome seems to be a tragic case which I suspect has destroyed the lives of the extended family. Yes, in my view it could have been avoided. So the purpose of this Blog is not to apportion blame – as most of the responses to the story I’ve read – but to show this as the type of case that should never have been allowed to go this far – by the legal team and the Courts (and of course the Participants). Regardless of the merits or weaknesses of each side’s legal arguments, this clearly was a lose / lose outcome.
Later this week I’m attending a meeting at the Ministry of Justice to review plans to bring greater awareness of mediation to the business community and the public. I plan to discuss this case as an example of how educating people to use mediation and then as early as possible, can help prevent this type of extreme outcome, which benefitted no one. Hopefully some good can come for others out of this very sad story.
Read more about the incident at the Daily Mail.
Best wishes
Roger
