Taxi driver brother cut out of £400k will after wearing a tartan hat to their father's funeral

From the Newshound archive · first published 5 October 2026 · last updated 6 October 2026.

Bani Verma, 67, is fighting his brother Harish at Central London County Court after being excluded from their father Gowerdhan Dass's £400,000 estate — with Harish's lawyers claiming the tartan Tam O'Shanter hat Bani wore to the funeral, while "laughing as if it were a wedding", proved his contempt for their father. Gowerdhan, who died aged 89 in February 2024, left everything to Harish, 57, and Harish's wife Paramjit under a will signed just three months before his death.

Bani's barrister Richard Buston claims Harish "decimated" the estate before death, including spending £18,750 on a Jaguar Land Rover for his wife.

Bani argues his father was "unduly influenced" to scrap a 2015 will that split the estate equally among four family branches.

Harish's lawyers fired back that Bani was emotionally distant from Gowerdhan and that the tartan bonnet — despite neither brother having Scottish heritage — "disrespected the deceased."