Farmers family took labourers savings

23 April 1999

Farmer’s family took labourer’s savings

A FARMHAND worked for 55 years for £5 a week on the understanding that his employer would invest the rest of his wages.

But Leslie Bawden, 80, discovered when Joseph Hillier died that members of the farmers family had helped themselves to his £22,000 savings.

Oxford County Court ordered Joan Taylor, the farmers daughter, and her son, Adrian, to repay the money.

Mr Bawden told the court he had never received an official pay packet in the 55 years he worked at Clattercote Priory Farm, in the Oxfordshire village of Claydon.

Instead his boss, Mr Hillier, had paid the wages into a savings account.

• The Times 23/04/02/99 page 3