A WOODFORD Green man and his family have won the right to a £34,000 inheritance after judges cleared him of forging the signature on a bitterly contested will.

Michael Fuller, of Glengall Road, and his family were left £34,000 of the £95,000 Max Moses Strum left in his will, which Fuller witnessed with his aunt. Mr Strum, a family friend, died aged 78 on Christmas Eve 1998.

The remainder of the money went to his adopted son Geoffrey Strum, along with a bitter message stating that he bequeathed him "the residue of my estate, albeit grudgingly. I hate him like poison."

Geoffrey claimed that this will was false and that the signature was a forgery.

His claim was upheld after a five-day High Court hearing in October 2000 which ruled in his favour and awarded him all of the money.

But at the Court of Appeal on Friday, Lord Justice Peter Gibson reversed the decision saying the critical comments in the will were not out of character for Max Strum.

The court heard how Mr Strum, a German Jew who fled the Nazis for England in 1940, married another refugee and became a British citizen, moving to Essex in 1948.

He and his wife Gertrude adopted Geoffrey, the son of an unmarried Irish mother, when he was ten days old, but the relationship between father and son turned sour after Gertrude became sick and eventually died in 1985.

Mr Strum wrote in his will: "I have been thinking of leaving the residue of my estate to charity, and not to my adopted son Geoffrey.

"In all the years I nursed my wife, his mother, he never once raised a finger to help me. I will never forget or forgive that."

Geoffrey told Judge Sher that his father never understood his "artistic temperament" and "wanted a more traditional route" for him than the path he had chosen in singing and drama.

In his will Mr Strum said of Mr Fuller: "Michael was almost like a son to me. He has been a loyal and trusted ally and confidant of mine."

Lord Justice Gibson, who was sitting with Lord Justice Chadwick and Lord Justice Longmore, declined to order a retrial saying Mr Fuller had dispelled suspicions about his role in the preparation of the will.

He concluded: "I would therefore allow the appeal, and set aside the judge's order and pronounce for the force and validity of the entire will."