The children of F1 legend Sir Stirling Moss are fighting each other in court over his £20million fortune and a helmet that saved his life.
Elliot Moss and Allison Bradley are locked in a legal battle over the estate of Lady Susie, Sir Stirling’s third wife, who inherited most of his estate when he died aged 90 in April 2020.
When Lady Susie passed away herself aged 69 in 2023, it emerged that her will – made in January 2022 – had left her entire estate to Allison, 59, Sir Stirling’s daughter from his second marriage to Elaine Barbarino.
Elliot lodged a caveat with the probate registry preventing the administration of her estate, prompting Allison to begin legal proceedings seeking to force the execution of the will and begin the probate process.
But Elliot, 44, has launched a counterclaim that contests the validity of Lady Susie’s 2022 will – claiming in court documents that she was suffering from a mental disorder at the time.
Instead, he wants Lady Susie’s earlier 2002 will to be recognised, which would see a 75-25 split in his favour.
Crucially, this would also leave him with a helmet Sir Stirling was wearing during a 1962 crash at Goodwood that put him in a month-long coma and ended his top-level racing career.
In a counterclaim seen by the Mail, Elliott accuses people around Lady Susie of seeking to ‘poison’ his mother’s mind against him while she allegedly suffered from depression and an alcohol addiction after the death of her husband – prompting her to cut him out.
The document refs to a family friend who allegedly ‘continued to supply Lady Susie with alcohol when he visited’.
The friend is accused of seeking to influence Sir Stirling’s decisions about his estate when he remained alive, and allegedly inserting a clause into Lady Susie’s 2022 will that allowed him to ‘charge for his executorship services’.
He is not named as a party in the case.
Tracey Angus, KC, acting for Elliot, suggests Sir Stirling’s death in 2020 prompted Lady Susie to develop a ‘complex bereavement disorder’ that prompted her alcohol dependency and depression to worsen.
‘Following Sir Stirling’s death, Lady Susie would carry the urn containing his ashes with her, cradling it and on occasions dabbing his ashes behind her ears,’ she writes in one passage.
‘By January 2022, Lady Susie had withdrawn into herself completely and often did not know what day or date it was.
‘She would forget conversations which she had had the previous week and had no idea what was going on in the world around her.’
Ms Angus claims that Lady Susie’s ‘disorder’ led her to develop ‘feelings of bitterness and a loss of trust towards others to whom she had formerly been close and whom she had trusted – particularly the Defendant (Elliot)’.
The counterclaim lists numerous harrowing examples of Lady Susie’s grief and allegedly erratic behaviour, which they said left her ‘vulnerable to undue influence’.
It also alleges that Allison visited her father ‘fewer than a dozen times’ in the three years before his death, and ‘did not have a close relationship’ with Lady Susie.
Alongside Sir Stirling’s fortune, his helmet is mentioned numerous times in the counterclaim.
The motorsport icon gifted the helmet and his ten British Racing Drivers’ Club gold stars to Lady Susie, lawyers for Elliot claim.
However, he allegedly wrote Elliot a letter explaining that he had made this gift for tax reasons and he wanted the helmet to eventually pass on to him.
In addition, Lady Susie is said to have included a note in her 2002 will stating her desire to give Elliot the helmet while she was still alive or – if this had not happened – after her death.
The claim states that Elliot asked for the helmet in 2021, but was informed that ‘Lady Susie had looked for it but could not find it’.
Its whereabouts are thought to remain unknown.
Elliot – who closed his high-end London restaurant Plu after it was overlooked for a Michelin star last year – previously claimed he was facing homelessness after losing out on a large inheritance.
No hearing date has been set at the High Court, and it is possible that Elliot and Allison could settle before a trial.
After his death, Moss left several gifts to close friends including his favourite paintings, model cars and even a lucky silver-set rabbit’s foot.
An additional £1,000 was set aside for his agent and partner to spend on a meal in Miami at seafood restaurant Joe’s Stone Crab.
During his extraordinary career, which spanned between 1951 and 1961, Moss won 16 races and finished on the podium 24 times.
He was forced to retire in 1962 after a crash at Goodwood, which left him in a coma for a month and partially paralysed for six months while recovering.
In February last year, a 1955 Mercedes driven by Moss and fellow F1 great Juan Manuel Fangio was sold at auction for £43m at Sotheby’s, setting a new record for a Grand Prix car.
The parties in the case have been contacted for comment.
