My mother died and my father is keeping the money?

My mother recently died.

Earlier this year she told me she wanted to leave me all her money (not much - £4000) and she was desparate that my father didn't get hold of any of it. He is 85 and has a comfortable life in a 3-bedroomed house. My sister will get some very valuable jewellery which belonged to my grandmother and she is also very comfortable with several properties. I get on well with my sister and I don't begrudge her anything.

At the time I felt uncomfortable about helping my mother write such a will and I asked her to ask someone else to help her do so. I suggested my sister. I didn't want to plant any seed in her mind that might make her think later that I loved her for any reason other than herself. I thought if I helped her write such a will, she might have such doubts at a later time.

After her death it seems there is no will. Also her bank book was missing from the usual place, and it took my father three days to find it. From what he has said, it's clear that he sees the money as being his.

I have always had a difficult relationship with my father. My mother said that "if he gets his hands on it, there won't be anything left for anyone else" and it's no surprise that she's been proved right.

I feel sad for 2 reasons. One is self-interest - the money would have been very useful to me. I always tried to present an image to her that I was doing all right, but in fact I'm struggling, and I think perhaps she knew that. Two, she was poor, she scrimped and saved to get just that small sum together, and I feel sad that all her efforts end up with the money going to the one person she didn't want it to go to. She was actually quite agitated at the thought of it. (He first idea was for me to simply take her bank card and withdraw the money bit by bit from the ATM machine.)

My question is, should I just accept this and mark it down as a lesson learned, or should I raise the subject with my father? My mother also had a difficult relationship with my father, but I would be surprised if she never mentioned this subject to him. It's possible she also mentioned it to my sister.