Darryl Ronald Thackwell has also been ordered to pay his sister more than $43,000 in court costs in a dispute over the estate of their late mother, Enid Thackwell, who died in Invercargill in May 2022, aged 95.
"They’re after money," he said.
"It’s all about ... extracting money out of some poor bastard, the poor bastard being me.
"Well, it’s not going to happen.
"I’ll tell the bloody judges, I don’t give a s... what comes out of this, judgements or otherwise. I am not complying and I will make that known."
He was talking to Open Justice after three decisions by Justice Melanie Harland in the High Court went against him and in favour of his sister, Karen Lee Hooper.
The first set aside Enid Thackwell’s only will, made in 2014, and appointed Ms Hooper the administrator of her estate.
The second set aside a "deed of forgiveness" agreement that wiped out a debt connected to the transfer of Mrs Thackwell’s house in New Brighton, Christchurch, to Thackwell.
This means Thackwell, who now lives in Invercargill, is required to pay $305,000 back to the estate.
The third decision awarded Ms Hooper more than $43,400 in court costs and disbursements arising from her expenses in fighting the case.
Ms Hooper, who lives in Perth, Western Australia, told the court her brother had been abusive towards her all her life, calling her an "adopted bitch" and telling her she would get nothing from their parents’ estates.
Their father, Ronald Thackwell, died in 2013.
Justice Harland said evidence before her suggested Darryl Thackwell did not provide his mother with all the necessities when she lived with him in Invercargill in the years before she died.
Instead, he bombarded care services with abusive emails and phone communications.
Nor did he replace Mrs Thackwell’s false teeth when she lost them, meaning she had to eat soft food for her last eight years.
"She [Mrs Thackwell] was deprived of the funds she required to live a comfortable life in her later years," Justice Harland said.
But Thackwell said the relationship he had with his mother at that time was "absolutely brilliant".
He said she lived until she was 95, "so I must have been doing something right".
Regarding her false teeth, he said: "The hospital wouldn’t wear the cost. That’s where that all fell apart."
The court judgements state that Enid and Ronald Thackwell had lived in the home in Estuary Rd, New Brighton, since Mr Thackwell built it in 1948.
In the year after her husband died, Mrs Thackwell made her only will, in October 2014, appointing her son as her executor and only beneficiary.
On the same day, she signed an agreement to sell the house to him for $305,000.
A month later, she signed two documents — one acknowledging she had lent the $305,000 to her son to buy the property, and another one, a "deed of forgiveness" of the debt, which meant he did not have to repay the money.
Thackwell later sold the Estuary Rd property and bought two properties in Invercargill. His mother went to live with him in one of them.
Justice Harland said Mrs Thackwell was 87 years old when she signed the documents and CT scans seven months later showed brain changes indicative of dementia.
A diagnosis of advanced dementia was made in January 2016 and confirmed in August that year.
Although these diagnoses were after she made her will and signed the documents concerning the sale of the house, Mrs Thackwell’s testamentary capacity in October 2014 was a "tenable issue", the judge said.
The judge said Thackwell had the obligation to show his mother did have capacity to do those things and he had failed to provide any such evidence.
"It has, in my view, been demonstrated that the will is invalid due to both lack of testamentary capacity and undue influence," Justice Harland said.
"The gift of the Estuary Rd property to Darryl was unduly influenced and an unconscionable dealing."
Ms Hooper has lived in Western Australia and the Middle East for many years, but said she used to visit her mother annually and phone her once a week.
Those calls were thwarted when Thackwell changed the phone number several times, the court was told.
Thackwell has not taken part in the court hearings to date and Ms Hooper’s lawyer said "enforcement proceedings" were now being taken.
Even if Thackwell pays Mrs Thackwell’s estate all the money required by the court, that does not mean he will lose it altogether.
He is likely to remain a beneficiary of the estate under the normal rules of inheritance, which would split the inheritance equally between him and his sister.
— Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter
