Title: The Guardianship Game prompted by Michael Poole
Genre: Legal Thriller / Psychological Drama
Setting: Jersey, Channel Islands – A shadowy legal enclave where wealth and old family fortunes quietly dictate power.
Plot Summary:
Alice Rawdon, a 63-year-old arbitrator with a painful family legacy, is suddenly drawn into a legal and psychological war when she's tipped off by a policewoman that a local lawyer has reported her to authorities. The only clue she’s given? “He’s 71, about your age.” That’s all she needs to know — she’s sure it’s Charles Thacker, a powerful ex-senior partner at an elite 13-partner firm.

Alice suspects that this is no ordinary report — it’s the opening move in a long-orchestrated legal ambush. The motive? Her inheritance: an old money Rothschild family legacy tied up in a maze of offshore trusts, variation orders, and contested wills. Thacker’s firm already tried to question her mental capacity earlier in the year through two social workers she refused to meet. She believes the real goal is to have her declared unfit, placed under a state-managed guardianship, and strip her of control over her legacy — allowing the firm to funnel her wealth into their own private coffers through court-sanctioned management fees.

But Alice is no pushover.

Once victimized in youth when her grandmother’s estate was “laundered” under legal pretenses in 1994, she’s since risen from the shadows — now a qualified adjudicator with ACIArb, with just enough legal knowledge to fight back...if she can stay sane long enough.

Haunted by a depressive psychosis, Alice must navigate gaslighting, psychological manipulation, and a cold bureaucratic machine working against her. The firm claims to be concerned for her wellbeing. The police grow colder with every inquiry. The social services file begins to grow, and soon, she starts receiving notices — hearings, evaluations, capacity assessments.

But Alice has one advantage they don’t know about: a hidden journal from her late mother, full of clues about the original laundering scheme, stashed away in a safety deposit box. With the help of a disillusioned junior solicitor inside Thacker’s firm, she begins to piece together a case of systemic legal corruption spanning decades, involving offshore shell companies, probate manipulation, and the court's silent complicity.

As the guardianship hearing looms, Alice must decide: play by the rules of a system rigged against her — or blow the entire legal establishment open, even if it means destroying her reputation in the process.

Key Themes:
Guardianship as a tool for exploitation

Power vs. mental health — who defines ‘capacity’?

Old wealth, legacy, and inheritance control

Small-town legal corruption

The courage to resist gaslighting and institutional coercion

Characters:
Alice Rawdon – Protagonist, principled but mentally vulnerable, determined to protect her family’s legacy.

Charles Thacker – Antagonist, a suave but ruthless senior lawyer, master of using the law to dispossess under the guise of care.

D.C. Ingrid Lemasney – The policewoman who hints at the lawyer’s involvement, later torn between duty and conscience.

Ellie Langridge – A young, idealistic lawyer working for Thacker’s firm, risks everything to leak files to Alice.

Dr. Marston Blythe – Forensic psychiatrist who must assess Alice’s capacity — but he’s on Thacker’s payroll.

Judge Julian Le Cocq – The Bailiff overseeing the guardianship hearing, with deeper ties to the firm than he's willing to admit.

Climax:
In a dramatic court showdown, Alice produces evidence of a multi-decade fraud — including forged medical documents and unauthorized trust changes made under sealed court orders. Just as the judge is about to rule against her, a last-minute affidavit from Ellie changes the course of the trial, exposing Thacker’s intent to profit from guardianship control.

But the war is not over — reputations are shredded, and Thacker’s firm doubles down, opening a civil defamation suit against Alice. The final chapter leaves her walking alone on the beach — free, but changed. The guardianship is denied, but the cost of truth was almost everything.

Tagline:
"When the law is used to steal, only the insane dare resist."