Friends secretly auctioned Winehouse items, court told

Callum Parke, Nina Massey, The Independent

Two friends of Amy Winehouse “deliberately concealed” that they sold a number of her personal items at auction after her death, barristers for the singer’s father have told the High Court. Mitch Winehouse, acting as the administrator of his daughter’s estate, is suing her friend Catriona Gourlay and stylist Naomi Parry for hundreds of thousands of pounds over claims they profited from selling dozens of items at auctions in the United States in 2021 and 2023. Ms Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 aged 27.

Lawyers for Mr Winehouse told a trial on Monday that the two women did not inform him they were selling the items, and the legal proceedings were his “only means of obtaining answers”. Ms Parry and Ms Gourlay are defending the claim, with their barristers stating that the items were either gifted by Ms Winehouse or were already owned by them.

Henry Legge KC, for Mr Winehouse, said in written submissions that the items included a silk mini-dress worn by Ms Winehouse in her final performance in Belgrade, Serbia, which Ms Parry auctioned for 243,200 US dollars (£182,656) in 2021. He said: “Ms Parry and Ms Gourlay deliberately concealed from Mr Winehouse the fact that they were auctioning the items consigned by them to the 2021 auction and that they were claiming ownership of those items.”

He continued that Mr Winehouse believed that all the 834 items in the 2021 auction catalogue were owned by the estate, but that the two women were “asserting ownership of over 150”. The barrister also said that Ms Parry was “instrumental in persuading Mr Winehouse to auction the estate’s items”, but did not tell him that she “stood to gain from his agreeing to do so”.

Mr Legge said that after Ms Winehouse’s death, Mr Winehouse was approached by Darren Julien, of Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles, in 2014 regarding an auction of her belongings, which Mr Winehouse initially declined.

Mr Julien then contacted Ms Parry, who indicated that she would be willing to sell “my collection” in 2018, with Ms Gourlay indicating she would be willing to sell items in 2019, Mr Legge said.

Mr Winehouse then agreed to auction items in 2021, which raised around 1.4 million dollars (£1.05 million) for the estate, with 30% of the proceeds going to the Amy Winehouse Foundation. But Mr Legge said that Mr Julien “did not take steps to correct Mr Winehouse’s obvious impression that all lots belonged to and were being sold by the estate”. The barrister also said that Mr Julien told Ms Parry in a text message after the auction: “I do think he will go a little nuts when he realises all the big pieces were yours”. He continued that both women then sold further items at a second auction in May 2023.

A hearing last July was also told by Mr Winehouse’s lawyers that Ms Parry had sold around 50 items at the 2021 auction for around 878,183 US dollars (about £682,000), and Ms Gourlay had sold around 90 items, for a total of 334,113 dollars (about £259,000).

Giving evidence on Monday, Mr Winehouse said: “I assume that, being so close, Amy would have given them some things, but 150 items, I just cannot believe it.” In written submissions, Beth Grossman, for Ms Parry, said that her client became Ms Winehouse’s stylist in 2006 and stayed at her property in Camden, London. She said: “Both defendants contend that the vast majority of the disputed items were in their possession from before Amy’s death in 2011, and in many instances from years before her death.

“Moreover, each defendant alleges that a number of disputed items had, in fact, always belonged to them and had only ever been loaned by Amy.” In written submissions on behalf of Ms Gourlay, barrister Ted Loveday said that his client “believed, and still believes, that the sale of the items is ‘what Amy would have wanted’”. He said that Ms Gourlay met Ms Winehouse in 2002 and was her flatmate from 2004 to 2005, with the earlier years of their relationship characterised by “sharing and swapping”.

Mr Loveday continued that after 2006 and the release of Back to Black, Winehouse “increasingly gave away items” to Ms Gourlay and others as part of “extravagant acts of generosity”.

The barrister also said that Mr Winehouse had “cobbled together” his claim in a “thoughtless and uncritical way”, and that he was “more concerned with protecting his reputation and punishing Ms Gourlay and Ms Parry for some sort of, entirely imagined, slights”. Mr Loveday also said that while the case originally concerned 156 items, Mr Winehouse had “abandoned” his claim to some. The trial before Sarah Clarke KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, is due to conclude later this week.