FOUR children of the late West Fife businessman, Alfred Stewart (pictured), have lost a legal bid to have his will overturned because they said he was suffering from delusional thinking towards the end of his life.

The wealthy property developer, who died in 2008, was described as "sexually predatory, selfish and careless for the feelings and wellbeing of others" by Court of Session judge Lord Brailsford.

However, the siblings - Garry Stewart, Calum Stewart, Linden Stephen and Leonie Griffin - failed to prove that it was delusional thinking which resulted in their father changing his will to their disadvantage.

The judge found that even though Mr Stewart's behaviour was "repugnant" it did not prove he lacked the capacity to make a will.

Most of the millionaire's fortune went to a trust he had set up in his name.

The Court of Session was told that Mr Stewart was a wife-beater, a bad-tempered parent who had his children "walking on eggshells" and in later life believed people were trying to poison him.

Alfred Stewart died on 29th April 2008 having amended his will earlier that month and also in the previous January.

Lord Brailsford stated in his written judgement, "I am satisfied that the testator (Alfred Stewart) behaved in an abusive manner towards his first wife.

"He also plainly conducted an adulterous relationship with the lady who, following his divorce, became his second wife.

"For reasons that were not explained in evidence, and are perhaps incapable of explanation, the testator also behaved in a distant and remote way towards the children of his first marriage.

"He seems to have shown them less love and emotional support than one would expect and hope to see from a parent.

"At the same time as the testator was behaving in this way towards his wife and children he pursued a highly successful business career as a builder and property developer, the fruits of which labours resulted in his becoming a wealthy man."

Calum Stewart gave evidence that as a child he felt his father was "distant", "strict and controlling and possessing a short temper" and was particularly unpleasant towards his wife, Calum's mother.

Alfred Stewart's principal company was Richmond Homes (Scotland) Limited, a house building company. When Calum first started working for the company full-time, his elder brother, Garry, was already working there.

The judgement stated, "Mr Stewart spoke to a period of time, presumably in the late 1980s, when he and his brother, Garry, and his father, the testator, managed that company.

"Garry appears to have worked as the managing director and Mr Stewart took responsibilities as construction director.

"He spoke to the brothers' relationship with their father being 'fairly fraught'. He said that the relationship between the three men 'wasn't easy'.

"He also spoke to his father having a poor relationship with the workforce of the company and with local planning authorities with whom he required to work in the everyday course of business."

Around 1990 Alfred Stewart decided his sons and stepson Colin McLeod should acquire the company and this took place.

Following a meeting in December 1997, relations finally broke down between father and sons.

Calum Stewart said his father "appeared agitated" at the meeting and then described him "erupting like a volcano".

Calum claimed his father said to him and Garry, "You pair of bastards, you've caused 30 years of misery to me, you've caused my life to be a failure".

The sons were "both aghast by this outburst which they regarded as wholly unwarranted".

Daughter Leonie Griffin also gave evidence about "an unhappy childhood and to her father's aggression towards herself, her mother and her siblings".

She said that she didn't understand why her father behaved the way he did.

The judgement went on, "From her earliest years she remembered one particular incident when her father was physically abusive to her mother.

"She and her siblings retreated to a bedroom where they heard him abusing and physically hurting her mother. She described this situation as being 'beyond horrible'."

After the death of Alfred Stewart's second wife, Barbara, in 1999 some acquaintances feared he was not looking after himself well and decided to provide his meals.

There was evidence from stepson Colin McLeod that after this, he heard that Mr Stewart was telling people that he (Mr McLeod) and another man were trying to poison him and he was putting the frozen meals they gave him in the bin.

Witness for the pursuers, Professor Graeme Yorston, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, was of the opinion that Alfred Stewart suffered from a "paranoid personality disorder".

He believed there was "clear evidence" that he "had an abnormal pattern of interacting with members of his family" and he "clearly bore a long-standing and deep-rooted grudge against his sons, which appears to have arisen from his belief that his sons had tried to obtain some financial advantage over him."

Professor Yorston believed this behaviour had been manifest for many years and that Mr Stewart's "sensitivity and suspiciousness tipped into more obvious paranoid thinking at times".

One of the defenders Roano Pierotti is a chartered surveyor nominated as an executor of his will by Alfred Stewart whom he had known since 1994.

He described Mr Stewart as a "nice man", "polite", "quiet and unassuming" and "a well‑respected entrepreneur in the local community of Dunfermline and West Fife".

Mr Pierotti last saw Mr Stewart a day or so before he died in hospital in Dunfermline. Up until that very last meeting Mr Pierotti had no doubts as to Mr Stweart's mental capacity.

Lord Brailford said his conclusions drawn from Mr Stewart's 'sexual disinhibition' were not favourable to his moral character.

He continued, "He seems to have been sexually predatory, selfish and careless for the feelings and wellbeing of others. That is, however, irrelevant so far as the present action is concerned.

"Whilst the psychiatric experts refer to the behaviour they do not regard it as showing mental disorder.

"The behaviour described may be repugnant but it does not in my view shed light on the testator's capacity, or lack thereof, to dispose of his estate by testamentary disposition."

The judgement further stated, "Distrust as to his first wife's sexual fidelity or the paternity of his sons is capable, as all the expert psychiatrists spoke to, of being construed as delusional ideation.

"It has not however been proven to my satisfaction that such thinking was necessarily delusional."

The defenders in the action were Clive Franks, Gifford Bruce, Roano Pierotti, Fiona Hay, Toby Kennedy, Dr Harry Moseley, Professor M. Samuel Emjamel, Carol Goodman.