MILLION-POUND RIFT
Channel 4 star struck down by family tragedy wins bitter row over £1million property
The star says they had worked on the farm since they were 10 years old
A REALITY TV star has won in a bitter court fight against his millionaire life coach uncle over a £1m family farm and campsite.
Frank Savage, 28, the last contestant to survive in the 2019 Channel 4 reality adventure series 'Hunted', has been locked in the inheritance row.
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Frank's mother had died weeks before the show was recorded, while his father had died years before.
Backed by his brother and other siblings, Frank has been fighting his millionaire uncle over the family inheritance - Pleasant Rise Farm, in Sussex.
Ownership of the farm is now shared between Frank, his three siblings, and their 76-year-old uncle Ray Savage.
The farm has been in the Savage family for three generations and is home to a popular campsite.
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Ray - a former police detective and life coach - wanted the prime 76-acre site close to the Sussex coast sold to the highest bidder in the wake of his split from wife Vanessa in 2015.
But Frank sued him, adamant that the farm should stay in the family.
Now Frank has won victory in London's Court of Appeal after a top judge ruled that a previous decision to hand control of the farm to Ray was wrong.
Frank was a star contestant in the 2019 finale of Hunted - in which 14 ordinary people have to go on the run for nearly a month while eluding a team of expert sleuths and trackers.
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That series ended with no one winning the £100,000 prize - Frank was caught only minutes from the helicopter extraction.
Frank's grandparents Leonard and Diana Savage bought the farm in the 1950s, expanding it over the years and establishing a thriving campsite in the 1970s.
Frank said his grandparents “always intended for the land to be passed down through the family - not sold" and through a family trust left the farm in unequal shares to their son Ray, and Frank and his siblings.
He sought the right to buy his uncle out at a preferential rate, claiming he had dedicated his “entire career” and tens of thousands of pounds to keep the site going.
“He regards his interest in the land as part of his ‘family’s legacy’ which he intends to pass on to generations after him,” explained his barrister, William Moffett.
And he says he and Ray had “many conversations” in the past in which it was agreed that in the future he would keep running the campsite.
But his uncle insisted he was also involved in developing the site and land, keeping horses on part of it as well as acquiring a tennis court and linked facilities with his brother in the 1970s.
In February 2022, a judge ruled in Frank’s favour on the dispute, giving him the right to purchase his uncle's share of the land for £666,150.
But his uncle successfully attacked that decision at Brighton County Court in October 2022.
The judge at Brighton County Court - Judge Stuart Farquhar - concluded he was not allowed to take anyone's interests into account in ruling on how the land should be sold, except those of the majority shareholder: Frank's Uncle Ray.
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But Lord Justice Snowden, at the Appeal Court, yesterday overruled Judge Farquhar, saying he had misinterpreted the law.
The result of Frank's victory means that the previous ruling giving him first refusal on buying out the farm from his uncle for £666,150 before it goes on the open market will be reinstated.
I went on Hunted & it’s even tougher than you think
Tasked with avoiding capture for 14 days, Nik and Eva Speakman admited one of the most unexpected challenges not captured on TV was living on barely any food.
Eva said: "There were days where we ate very little. We both lost weight. "By choice. We did have tinned tuna, nuts, and things like that with us. But we were rationing them a lot."
By far the toughest element, however, was living in a constant state of dread not knowing how near the hunters actually are.
Nik explained: "You're constantly on edge, because you never know where the hunters are, so you have to be vigilant all the time.
"And that alone is so tiring, it made me realise how tiring it can be for people who suffer with anxieties."
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