Rik Rok teamed up with Shaggy on the 2001 hit, but has now been pulled into a family feud

BY Robert Ayling From UK INDEPENDENT

Ricardo (Rik Rok) Ducent outside court (Champion News)

The singer who teamed up with Shaggy for the number one hit “It Wasn’t Me” is caught up in a bitter family court battle over his dead father’s £1m fortune.

British-Jamaican vocalist Rickardo “Rik Rok” Ducent co-wrote the 2001 smash with Shaggy. 

He sang the main vocals on the track, which was the best-selling single of the year in the UK and has since clocked up more than one billion plays on Spotify.

In the song, Rik laments that he’s been “caught red-handed” cheating on his partner, while Shaggy urges him to tell her: “It wasn’t me.” 

The hit, which reached No 1 in 10 countries, established Rik Rok’s name as a solo artist.

However, the singer, now aged 52, is caught up in a fraught inter-family legal clash after his half-sister, Sarah Ducent, went to court claiming a fair share of the £900,000-plus fortune bequeathed by their father, Herbert Ducent. Herbert died in 2007, aged 63, leaving behind assets in both London and Jamaica. 

The dispute at Central London County Court pits Sarah against Rik Rok’s mother, Dorothy Ducent, who had worked alongside Herbert in his south London bakery business and inherited his wealth after his death.

Rik, whose birth name is Rickardo George Ducent, was previously a party to the dispute. He gave evidence in court to support his mother’s defence to her stepdaughter’s claim.

Herbert was an entrepreneur who established a successful construction company in Jamaica, as well as running the bakery in Brixton.

His English estate mainly consisted of two neighbouring properties in Peak Hill, Sydenham, jointly valued at around £900,000.

In his will, drawn up in Jamaica, Herbert named his widow Dorothy as his main heir, cutting out his daughter, Sarah, from whom Rik claims Herbert had become “estranged”. 

But Sarah, who says she is now living “on the breadline”, has gone to court in a bid to secure “reasonable provision” from her father’s estate in line with the terms of the 1975 Inheritance Act as his dependant.

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