Son from secret affair in court fight for share of tycoon’s £14,500,000 fortune

The son of a toy maker is fighting to stop his half-brother getting his hands on the £14.5 million family fortune after learning he was born out of their mother’s affair.

Stuart Marcus started out selling dolls’ houses from a room above a small east London toy shop in the 1960s before going on to build a multi-million games empire.

Shortly before he died aged 86 in 2020, he put £14.5 million worth of company shares into trust for his ‘children’, with brothers Edward, 47, and Jonathan, 43, both benefiting.

But the family was thrown into turmoil after it emerged Edward was not Stuart’s son, but instead the product of an affair between his mum, Patricia Marcus, and lawyer Sydney Glossop.

Last year, a judge ruled that despite the revelation, Edward could still benefit from the fortune on the basis that both brothers were intended to share.

Stuart Marcus – dubbed ‘a modest man with a big dream and a big heart’ by business colleagues – founded Kitfix Hobbies in 1962.

He carved out a major niche in toys, board games and craft kits, later transferring the company HQ to Swaffham, in Norfolk.

The disputed trust he set up holds shares valued at £14.5m in the family companies, in which both brothers worked as the brand grew and diversified into other fields such as property, with Jonathan heading up successful commercial operations in Germany.

But since 2016, relations between the two brothers soured, culminating in the High Court clash, in which Jonathan claimed Edward should be excluded from benefiting under the trust.

Jonathan claimed Edward was the product of a one-night stand his mum Patricia Marcus, 82, had with a lawyer named Sydney Glossop while his dad was away on business.

That claim was based on Jonathan’s discovery in 2023 of the ‘monumental’ news that Patricia had confided in Edward that he wasn’t Stuart’s son during a confidential chat 14 years ago.

Although Edward kept his secret for more than a decade, when Jonathan learned the news, it triggered a court fight as he tried to have Edward removed as a beneficiary of the multimillion-pound family trust established before Stuart’s death.

Jonathan commissioned DNA evidence to back his claim, while his mum told the court herself that she had no doubt that Edward’s real dad was Sydney, with whom she had a brief encounter over 40 years ago.

After three days in court last year, a judge, Master Matthew Marsh, found that the evidence confirmed that Edward is not Stuart’s son.

He highlighted the ‘cogent and reliable’ DNA test evidence, as well as compelling testimony from the two half-siblings’ own mother.

But he went on to find that the family trust does not exclude Edward, as in the context of the trust settlement, the word ‘children’ meant both boys.

‘A reasonable person in knowledge of the relevant facts would readily conclude that, when using “children”, Stuart intended this word to be understood as meaning Edward and Jonathan; and not Edward and Jonathan provided they are in fact my biological sons,’ he concluded.

This week, representing Jonathan in an appeal at the High Court, Mr Braithwaite argued that Master Marsh had got it wrong and that Edward should not benefit.

Stuart’s trust described the beneficiaries as his ‘children’, which Mr Braithwaite insisted could only be taken in its ordinary meaning, ‘biological children’.

‘The word “children” simply cannot be a placeholder for two specific people,’ he told High Court judge, Sir Anthony Mann.

He added there had been a ‘common mistaken assumption’ when the document was created that the boys were both Stuart’s children.

‘Everything else in the background needs to be seen through the prism of that mistaken assumption that Edward was Stuart’s biological son,’ he said.

‘What does children mean? It means biological children, of course.

‘Stuart intended to benefit Edward, but he believed Edward was his biological child.

‘The fact Edward was brought up in the family and the fact the purpose of this settlement was to benefit the people Stuart thought to be his children simply goes to establish that the interpretation of the word “children” that should be adopted is the ordinary one.

‘A reasonable person with all the background, including the mistaken assumption that Edward was Stuart’s biological child, is going to say it refers to biological children.’

But for Edward, barrister Matthew Mills argued that it was obvious that Stuart had intended to benefit Edward and urged the judge to dismiss Jonathan’s appeal.

‘Jonathan is doing this to try to take away from Edward any rights in this multi-million pound family business,’ he told the High Court judge.

‘It is entirely appropriate, on the facts of this case, to define the class of beneficiaries as Edward and Jonathan – as the master did.

‘Stuart intended to benefit Edward, who he designated and thought to be his child. Realistically, the reasonable person would think that Edward is a beneficiary of this settlement.’

Following last year’s trial, Edward, now an in-house solicitor for a housing company, was left having to pay £150,000 towards his brother’s legal bills after Master Marsh criticised him for bringing the paternity fight to court.

He said that, once the DNA evidence was known, it was ‘as clear as could be’ that he was not going to be able to prove he was Stuart’s biological son.

Following a half-day in court, Sir Anthony reserved his judgment on Jonathan’s bid to exclude his brother from the family fortune until a later date.

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