The singer grandson of Sixties legend Marianne Faithfull has been caught up in a £400,000 court row between his mother and aunt.
Oscar Dunbar was sucked into the venomous legal spat which centres on a bitter childhood grudge and ‘distressing’ delays in burying a dead body, the High Court heard.
Mr Dunbar’s writer mother Carole Jaume, 61, and his aunt Patrica Tonge, 72, are fighting over their own mother’s £400K estate which is tied up in a home in Axminster, Devon.
He’s been named as a co-executor on the will of ‘profoundly independent’ Dorothy Jahme who died aged 97 in April 2022.
But since her death her two daughters have butted heads over the management of her will with Carole accused of ‘irrational hostility’ towards Patricia over a childhood grudge.
London‘s High Court heard that the sisters had argued over their mother’s cause of death, which was recorded as pneumonia and dementia, with dispute leading to a four-month delay in burying her body.
Carole had sought to change this to Covid, believing her mother had died of the disease – telling local newspaper the Midweek Herald that she had contracted the disease from a live-in carer who had come to stay.
Nathan Wells, barrister for Patricia Tonge and her daughter, Samantha Tonge, said Carole held up the burial by ‘insisting’ on the change to the death certificate, and had acted hostile towards her sister in recent times.
Oscar Dunbar pictured with his grandmother Marianne Faithfull in 2021. He was named as a co-executor on his other grandmother Dorothy Jahme’s will
His mother – and Faithfull’s daughter-in-law – Carole Jamhe (pictured) made unsubstantiated claims of childhood cruelty by her sister and co-executor Patricia Tonge
Patricia Tonge outside the High Court in London, where the case was heard. She denied claims of being cruel to her younger sister as a child
She had, he continued, 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,’ Mr Wells added.
There were questions over transactions from Dorothy Lahme’s account at a time when Carole had power of attorney, the barrister said.
Among them was a payment for a pair of sunglasses in Portugal in 2019 when Dorothy Jahme was 94 and not, the court heard, in the habit of jetting off abroad.
Carole also failed to engage with her sister and her daughter as co-executors of their mother’s will, further exacerbating the row over the estate.
Oscar Dunbar, the grandson of both Marianne Faithfull and Mrs Jahme, had been named as a co-executor of the latter’s will.
The court was told that the frontman of one-time indie band Khartoum, who is credited as a producer on Marianne’s posthumous EP, Burning Moonlight, and co-wrote its lead track Love Is alongside his paternal grandmother, had ‘stepped away’ from the dispute.
There was ‘no suggestion’ that he had any involvement in the possible mismanagement of his maternal grandmother’s financial affairs.
But his ‘sustained inactivity’ as an executor prompted judge Master Katherine McQuail to remove him from his position – alongside his mother.
They will be replaced by a professional lawyer to help administer the estate.
Master McQuail, following the two-hour hearing, agreed there were grounds for stripping the executor roles from mother and son. Oscar did not dispute his removal.
The judge said: ‘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.’
Turning to Carole Jahme, she said: ‘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.’
Her ruling made no finding of facts over the allegations of financial mismanagement, but she noted: ‘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.’
Oscar Dunbar with his grandmother Marianne Faithfull in a video he shared on Instagram discussing her life
In June this year, Oscar – son of journalist Nick Dunbar – told music publication Clash that his family was ‘all still grieving’ the loss of Marianne Faithfull, who had carved out a varied career as a singer, dancer and actor.
Her storied life saw her date the likes of Mick Jagger and have a one-night stand with Keith Richards – all while married to art gallery owner John Dunbar, Oscar’s paternal grandfather.
She is said to have inspired songs such as Wild Horses and You Can’t Always Get What You Want – and battled drug addiction and homelessness in the 1970s.
He co-produced her last work, Burning Moonlight, writing the song Love Is alongside her. It features a touching excerpt of an interview with a young Marianne speaking about becoming a pop singer and attending a party alongside the Rolling Stones.
Oscar told the magazine: ‘We miss her every day. But she wanted this music to come out, and I’m happy people get to hear it. It’s Marianne doing what she did best – making music and writing great songs with real depth.
‘Marianne could go to different parts of the psyche. She was tuned in to sadness, or depression. She could get quite dark in her music. But she could also be very funny and hopeful. She explored beauty in all its different shades.
‘I just wish she was still here to see that celebrated.’
