A MAN who was left everything in his dead wife's will has strongly denied a High Court legal claim that the will was forged.

The only son of Kettlewell woman Linda Cartledge, who died of cancer on October 3 2003, is disputing her will which cuts him out of her estate.

In a Statement of Claim lodged in the High Court's Chancery Division, Antony Robinson says the signatures on two documents drawn up just days before her death were forged and his mother never meant to disinherit him.

Skipton solicitors Walker Foster, representing Mr Robinson, say the will, drawn up on September 26 2003, cut out her son and only child from her estate and instead bequeathed it to her second husband Alan Cartledge.

It is also claimed that two witnesses present at the alleged signing of the will, were employees of Mr Cartledge.

Mr Cartledge rejects the claims and alleges that, in the final weeks of her life, Mrs Cartledge had become estranged from her son from her first marriage and wanted to keep the estate from him. He says the witnesses were not employees, but they were friends.

John Eyre, the solicitor representing Mr Cartledge, said his client utterly denied being party to a conspiracy to forge the signature of his dying wife. He said he was the victim of serious wrongful allegations.

Now Robert Foster, the solicitor acting for Mr Robinson, has placed an advertisement on the front page of today's Craven Herald asking for witnesses who knew the deceased and her relationship with her son to come forward.

The claimant alleges that Mrs Cartledge, who was dying from cancer, telephoned her son three days after the disputed September 2003 will was said to have been signed and the day before she lapsed into unconsciousness. The call was to tell him how much she loved him.

And in July 2002, shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, she wrote a letter to her son saying she loved him "with all my heart" and this was placed in an envelope marked "open on my death only". Mr Robinson contends that clearly she did not want to disinherit him.

The Statement of Claim also alleges that an earlier will, in June 2003, was obtained under the undue influence of Mr Cartledge.

Mrs Cartledge's first will, in 1992, had left her estate in favour of her son alone.

At the time of execution of the June 2003 will, Mrs Cartledge was due to have an operation four days later which she did not expect to survive.

The Statement continues to state that Mrs Cartledge asked her first husband, Mr Robinson's father, to attend.

"The claimant's father duly did so... The deceased told the claimant's father and Mr Cartledge that she wanted to leave to the claimant her whole estate," the Statement reads.

"Mr Cartledge became very agitated at this prospect and forbad her to make such a will. He threatened the deceased that if she tried to do that, then he would ensure (by means not specified) that the claimant would receive nothing."

The Statement claims that after an argument Mrs Cartledge agreed to leave her half shares in a caravan park and a house in South Africa to her second husband.

"They were gifts that the first defendant had forced her to make against her wishes," said the Statement.

Alan Cartledge strongly denies arguing over his wife's estate or making any threats. He says he never tried to pressure his wife at any time and he says the will executed in June 2003 represented his wife's genuine wishes and instructions.

He only discovered after his wife's death that there was another will - leaving him everything. Mr Cartledge alleges that, in the months leading up to her death, his wife had been saddened by what she thought was her son's "unloving attitude".

An initial hearing is due to be heard in the High Court in the next few weeks.