The father of the British singer Amy Winehouse was ordered to pay about $1.3 million to two of her friends after a legal battle in which he accused them of secretly auctioning off his daughter’s personal belongings.
In a ruling issued on Wednesday, a judge in Britain ordered Mitch Winehouse to cover the legal costs of the two defendants, which amounted to about 960,000 British pounds. The decision came after the judge had dismissed the case in April, when the court found that many of the items sold were likely gifts to Ms. Winehouse’s friends.
Mr. Winehouse manages the estate of his daughter, who died in 2011 of alcohol poisoning. He sued the two defendants, Naomi Parry and Catriona Gourlay, claiming that they had “deliberately concealed” the sale of around 150 items, which were sold at auction in Los Angeles in 2021 and 2023. Mr. Winehouse claimed the items belonged to the estate.
In her ruling, Judge Sarah Clarke wrote that Mr. Winehouse knew that the items were going to be auctioned, and that he chose to bring “an inherently weak claim” and pursue it “aggressively and relentlessly to the end.” Mr. Winehouse, the judge wrote, also made “serious and unfounded allegations against the defendants, which significantly damaged their reputations, career prospects, financial security and health.”
Lawyers for Mr. Winehouse did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a message posted on social media on Wednesday, Ms. Parry, the singer’s former stylist, praised the judge’s ruling.
“This litigation has consumed almost five years of my life,” she said. “It has destroyed my career and cost me more than I can put into words. But the best thing to come out of it is that the judge has unequivocally cleared my name and reputation.”
The items sold at auction included hundreds of Ms. Winehouse’s personal effects, including clothing, jewelry, photographs and furniture. Many of the items sold at much higher prices than their pre-auction estimates. One dress, which Ms. Winehouse wore during her final stage performance in Belgrade, Serbia, a month before her death, sold for more than $243,000.
The auctions netted millions of dollars, with some of the proceeds going to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, a charity set up in the singer’s name after her death, according to the auction house. Ms. Parry and Ms. Gourlay reportedly made about $1.2 million from items they sold at Julien’s Auctions, which offered up hundreds of the singer’s personal items.
In her ruling in April, the judge found there was evidence that Ms. Winehouse gave away clothes to friends, noting that the singer had more than she could wear and did not want to be seen wearing the same outfit in public more than once.
In the ruling on Wednesday, the judge ordered Mr. Winehouse to pay the legal fees of the two women on an indemnity basis, meaning he will have to pay a much higher percentage of their fees.
The judge added that Mr. Winehouse had pursued the defendants in an aggressive manner to try to intimidate them.
“He did so, knowing that they were vulnerable both financially and in status, and that his public allegations and insinuations of impropriety would only increase their vulnerability,” the judge wrote. “The fact that he knowingly and deliberately did this to two young women who had stood faithfully by Amy and also by him and his family and who had demonstrated their honesty and integrity over many years, makes his unreasonable conduct particularly serious.”
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