Earl of Cardigan's estate is owed £160,000 by trustees, High Court ruling reveals

Mr Justice Newey has ruled in the latest round of litigation centred on the ancient family estate at Savernake, near Marlborough, of the earl - David Brudenell-Bruce, 61.

The judge concluded that the trustees had failed to "achieve the repair and re-letting" of a house of the estate and had also failed to take steps to obtain possession of another estate property.

As a result, the estate had lost sums totalling more than £60,000 and he said the trustees should pay those sums to the trust in compensation.

Mr Justice Newey also said  barristers' clerk John Moore, a former chairman of a local Conservative Party branch, had not been entitled to charge "for his services".

But Mr Moore had been paid more than £100,000 in the past six years.

Mr Justice Newey refused to authorise those payments and said Mr Moore should repay the money. 

He did blames the earl for the breakdown in relations between himself and Mr Moore, saying the "lion's share of responsibility for that breakdown ought, I think, to be laid at Lord Cardigan's door."

Mr Justice Newey heard that the earl's father - the 8th Marquess of Ailesbury, Sir Michael Brudenell-Bruce, 87 - had described him as "difficult at times to deal with".

And the judge was told that the earl's estate foreman carried a video camera "24/7" because his employer "would do silly things".

The earl had sent emails describing former friend Mr Moore as a "pedant", a "stupid man", "scum", a "creature" and a "thief", the High Court had heard.

Mr Justice Newey said the earl took legal action against two estate trustees - Mr Moore and Wilson Cotton.

The earl challenged the remuneration the two men received as trustees, said the judge. He wanted the judge to order their removal as trustees.

Mr Justice Newey said Mr Cotton should stay as a trustee, and ruled that Mr Moore should be removed as a trustee - although not immediately.

But the judge said the earl and one of his legal advisers were "principally responsible" for the breakdown in the relationship with Mr Moore.

And he warned the earl against using his ruling to "blacken Mr Moore's name in the press and local area".

Mr Justice Newey said Mr Moore "put up with a great deal of unpleasantness" from the earl, despite the amount of time he had devoted to the estate.

The judge said it would be wrong in particular for the earl to describe Mr Moore as a "thief".

But the judge also concluded that the trustees had failed to "achieve the repair and re-letting" of a house of the estate.

He said they had also failed to take steps to obtain possession of another estate property and, as a result, the estate had lost sums totalling more than £60,000.

And he said the trustees should pay those sums to the trust in compensation.

Mr Justice Newey also said Mr Moore had not been entitled to charge "for his services".

But he said Mr Moore had been paid more than £100,000 over the past six years.

He refused to authorise those payments and said Mr Moore should repay money he had received as "remuneration".

Mr Justice Newey said the fact that a trustee had "failed in his duties" would not "invariably" mean that he should be removed as such.

But he added: "In Mr Moore's case, however, the breakdown in his relationship with Lord Cardigan also seems to me to point in the direction of removal. The lion's share of responsibility for that breakdown ought, I think, to be laid at Lord Cardigan's door."

And he went on: "The friendship that once existed between Lord Cardigan and Mr Moore appears to be irrevocably fractured. The fact remains that there is now a very serious estrangement between the two."

Mr Justice Newey said Lord Cardigan and Mr Moore had met around 30 years ago, had been "close friends" and members of the same Conservative Party branch.

But the judge said their relationship had broken down - and he outlined a number of emails Lord Cardigan had sent to Mr Moore.

One email said: "What part of p*** off don't you get?" Another began: "Listen you stupid man..."

Lord Cardigan had also referred to Mr Moore in emails to other people. One began: "That scum Moore..." Another included the phrase "...creatures like John Moore" and one described him as "the Thief".

At one point Mr Moore had emailed Lord Cardigan, suggesting he should try to work with the trustees, "rather than making every single contact with the trustees an aggressive or unpleasant exchange laced with sarcasm and threats".

Mr Justice Newey said the earl's father had written to the trustees last year, saying: "Although my son, Lord Cardigan, can undoubtedly be difficult at times to deal with, it seems to me that the level of hostility which now exists between David and the two of you as trustees to the estate has reached a level whereby all objectivity has been lost and the trust simply does not and cannot function in anything like the way ... it should."

The Earl of Cardigan said today in a statement about Mr Moore: "What is sickening about this man's success at forcing through the sale of Tottenham House in the face of fierce opposition from me and my father the Marquess of Ailesbury, before the High Court today ordered him to resign and to repay his £118,00 of ill-gotten gains, plus damages, is that he only became a Trustee in the first place by telling me and others for many years that he was a "non-practicing barrister", and administering legal advice to the estate. 

"It now emerges that he is no more than the CLERK at a firm of barristers, and not a barrister at all."   

• The Cardigan name is renowned because of the part played by one of the earl's ancestors in one of the most famous attacks in military history - the 1854 Charge of The Light Brigade, during the Crimean War.

Details of the link were placed on a Savernake Estate website, which says: ''In 1854, during the Crimean War, a very distant cousin of the Savernake Forest family was told that his commander-in-chief had ordered him and his men to mount a cavalry charge on some distant Russian cannons.

''Though he naturally queried the written order, he was again ordered to carry it out, which he reluctantly did - and so James, Earl of Cardigan and his Light Brigade passed into famous history.''

The website said the estate was set in Savernake Forest, between Marlborough and Hungerford, and is privately owned by the earl and family trustees. It said the 4,500-acre woodland is the only privately-owned forest in Britain.

An estate history on the website said Savernake Forest could not be "less than 1,000 years old'' and was referred to in a Saxon charter from King Athelstan in 934AD and called Safernoc.

The website said there were four buildings called Tottenham House on the southern edge of the forest. The present stately home was built in 1820, it adds. It said the family lived in Tottenham House until 1940. After the Second World War ended, the family moved to a smaller house on the estate.

Earl of Cardigan loses fight to stop sale of ancestral Savernake home