Daughter at war with ‘housekeeper who tried to wed her dying father’

The daughter of a wealthy engineer is fighting a court battle with the “domestic servant” she claims tried to marry her father on his deathbed.

Deborah John-Woodruffe says Bok Soon Song, 72, was nothing more than a “live-in housekeeper” who took advantage of John Williams.

She claims that despite barely speaking English, the ex-waitress tried to wed Mr Williams in hospital, only for him to send her and the registrar packing.

When he died from bowel cancer in 2016, aged 66, Mr Williams left an estate worth more than £1 million, including a four-bedroom house in Kensal Rise.

The home would normally have passed to his children as he did not leave a valid will, but Miss Bok changed the locks before launching a legal claim to his assets, a court heard. She says she was effectively Mr Williams’s wife.

Mrs John-Woodruffe, 47, disputes this and is trying to have her evicted. Representing the engineer’s daughter at Central London County Court, barrister Barry Coulter said Miss Bok had “sought to marry” Mr Williams as he lay gravely ill, calling a registrar for the ceremony.

“No part in this was played by the deceased and, when the wedding party arrived, he sent them on their way,” Mr Coulter said. He questioned how Miss Bok, speaking very little English, could have understood a marriage proposal.

Through a Korean interpreter, Miss Bok told the court Mr Williams proposed to her using simple words and gestures and by pointing at words in a phrasebook. But when the marriage was due to take place he decided to postpone it and sent the registrar away, she said.

Judge Marc Dight heard she moved from South Korea in 1983 and worked as a waitress and restaurant manager. She met Korean food lover and engineer Mr Williams in the Nineties through mutual friends and, she claims, began a long-term relationship with him.

Her barrister Paul Infield said they lived at her flat then the disputed house in Chamberlayne Road: “They slept in the same bed until he became ill, had sexual relations and were effectively a couple.”

Showing a birthday card ad-dressed to “my wonderful wife from the man who loves you more than words can say,” he added: “Those are not cards sent by an employer to his housekeeper.”

Miss Bok is suing the estate for “reasonable provision”, claiming she will “be left homeless and destitute” otherwise. But Mr Coulter said: “She did not attend the funeral ... no one remarked on the absence of his supposed partner of over 20 years.

She was a long-time housekeeper, seeking to take advantage of a dying man.” The hearing continues.