A couple who previously ran a care home in the West Midlands have each received three-year prison sentences for plotting one of Britain’s biggest elder fraud cases.
The husband and wife were found guilty of fabricating an elderly resident’s will in an attempt to steal her £175,000 estate.
Graham Walker, 74, and Lyn Walker, 71, were sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday after being found guilty of fraud alongside the facility’s former manager, Jamiel Slaney-Summers.
The couple, from Ribberford Close in Halesowen, conspired to financially exploit 85-year-old Rita Barnsley while she resided at Amberley Care Home in Brierley Hill.
Prosecutors described the case as one of the largest recorded convictions for elder fraud in Britain.
Both defendants were also ordered to pay £30,000 in prosecution costs, with twelve months to settle the amount.
The fraudulent scheme centred on a bogus will crafted using different coloured pens and varying handwriting styles to forge Miss Barnsley’s final wishes.
Slaney-Summers, identified as the ringleader, created the document, which named herself and Lyn Walker as executors of the estate.
A couple who ran Amberley Care Home in Brierley Hill have been jailed for plotting one of Britain’s biggest elder fraud cases
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Miss Barnsley’s property was subsequently sold for £150,000 in November 2022, and she held an additional £28,000 in an HSBC account, bringing her total estate value to at least £178,000.
The fake will allocated 50 per cent of the estate to Slaney-Summers, 25 per cent to Lyn Walker, with the remaining quarter left to Miss Barnsley’s cousin.
It also included £5,000 for care home staff, despite the facility’s policy prohibiting employees from accepting gifts from residents.
Slaney-Summers, 65, formerly of Raven Hays Road in Birmingham, received a five-and-a-half-year sentence in December after also being convicted of stealing £6,000 using Miss Barnsley’s bank card.
The pair were sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court
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GOOGLE MAPSJudge John Butterfield KC condemned the defendants’ conduct during sentencing, saying: “This was a situation which presented itself to you, but you reacted with greed, rather than with concern and honesty.”
The court heard that Miss Barnsley had lived independently for years before her declining health necessitated a move to the care home in May 2020.
Her cousin Verna, who is in her eighties, suffered from agoraphobia and could not visit in person, instead relying on telephone contact.
However, the judge said he was certain “deliberate steps” were taken to restrict communication, with Verna told she could only reach her cousin via the care home’s landline.
Judge Butterfield explained: “Rita was being steadily isolated so that she would turn more and more in reliance on staff at the care home, and in particular, Slaney-Summers.”
The fraudulent document contained messages of gratitude that Miss Barnsley, who paid £700 weekly for her care, had supposedly written.
It thanked “good friend” Slaney-Summers “for the happiness and laughter she gave me” whilst expressing appreciation to Lyn Walker “for allowing me to stay in her lovely home”.
Ms Barnsley passed away in the summer of 2021, with the will purportedly dated 12 January that year.
Her cousin Verna Woolley grew suspicious upon reading the document and discovering she had been described as Miss Barnsley’s “adopted cousin”, terminology she insisted was never used between them.
Judge Butterfield noted this had upset Verna, adding: “She knew that Rita did not see her in that way and did not refer to her in that way.”
The judge remarked: “Miss Woolley smelt a rat from the outset. She was fobbed off but not bought off.”
Graham Walker subsequently took the forged document to a solicitor and contacted an estate agent about selling Miss Barnsley’s property, actions which his wife consented to.
Defence barrister Henry Skudra argued that Slaney-Summers “was the driving force behind what went on” and that “the Walkers were included at a later stage and were not involved in the forgery of the will”.
He noted that neither defendant had previous convictions and added: “Mercifully, there was no actual loss. Both the defendants are of good character.
“Each of them has led blameless lives before what was rather an opportunist crime. Decades of hard work and reputations ruined.”
Councillor Phil Atkins, Dudley Council’s cabinet member for development and regulation, welcomed the verdict: “Their intentions were clear – to fleece this poor, vulnerable woman of all the money she had worked her whole life to earn. It was an horrific abuse of trust by three people who she was relying on to look after her best interests.
“This case is a warning that as a council we will not tolerate elder abuse.”