London – Chinese Restaurant Owners to Keep Late Widow’s Fortune

London – A couple who run a Chinese restaurant in Essex were given the go-ahead by the High Court on Friday to keep the 10 million pounds one of their elderly and long-standing friends left them on her death.

When Golda "Goldie" Bechal died she bequeathed virtually her entire estate, made up of various business and property interests across the south east, to Kim Sing Man and his wife Bee Lian Man.

The only other major beneficiaries were a number of charities, including Jewish causes.

A group of Bechal's nieces and nephews challenged the wills claiming their aunt was so mentally frail at the time of signing the wills that they were invalid, as was reported at that time here on Vos Iz Neias.

But Judge Sir Donald Rattee ruled that Bechal knew exactly what she was doing when she made the bequest. He held that although Bechal had been suffering from dementia at the time she signed, she had made the will in a way which suggested she had taken into account the competing interests of her family, and was aware of how much money she had.

He said that Bechal, was a "sad and lonely" widow, and regarded Bee Lian Man as the "daughter she would have dearly liked to have had". [Reuters]