Two ‘greedy’ care home bosses who tried to fleece a pensioner out of £133,000 using a fake will have each been jailed for three years.
Owners Graham Walker, 74, and his wife Lyn, 71, plotted with manager Jamiel Slaney-Summers, 65, to scam frail 85-year-old Rita Barnsley in ‘one of the UK’s biggest elder fraud cases’.
The ‘sham’ will was created with different coloured pens and different handwriting while the ‘isolated’ pensioner was living at Amberley Care Home in Brierley Hill, West Midlands, a court heard.
The bogus document thanked ‘good friend’ Ms Slaney-Summers ‘for the happiness and laughter she gave me’ while Lyn Walker was included ‘for allowing me to stay in her lovely home’.
An investigation by council bosses was launched after Miss Barnsley’s only surviving relative, her cousin Verna Woolley, became suspicious and made a complaint.
It was found that the scheming trio had plotted to get the largest amount of the estate made up Miss Barnsley’s £150,000 house and £28,000 in savings.
Today, Mr and Mrs Walker, of Halesowen, were jailed at Wolverhampton Crown Court and each ordered to pay £30,000 costs.
Ms Slaney-Summers, of Northfield, Birmingham, was previously sentenced to five and a half years.
Sentencing, Judge John Butterfield KC said: ‘This was a situation which presented itself to you and you reacted with greed rather than with concern or honesty.’
He said Miss Barnsley’s cousin suffered from agoraphobia but did what she could to keep in touch.
He said ‘deliberate steps’ were taken to make it more difficult for Miss Woolley, who was told she could only contact Miss Barnsley on a land line.
The judge added: ‘Miss Woolley smelt a rat from the outset.
‘She was fobbed off but not bought off.’
‘Vulnerable’ Miss Barnsley moved into the care home after becoming unwell in May 2020, the court was told.
At the time, the Walkers owned the care home, while Ms Slaney-Summers was the registered manager.
Miss Barnsley, who died in the summer of 2021, had cash in bank accounts and owned property worth ‘in excess of £150,000.’
Her last will and testament, which appointed Mrs Walker and Ms Slaney-Summers as executors, was made on January 12, 2021.
The will left Mrs Walker with 25 per cent of Miss Barnsley’s estate and 50 per cent to Ms Slaney-Summers.
Prosecutor Mark Jackson said Miss Barnsley’s only living relative and next of kin was her cousin Miss Woolley, who had been adopted into the family.
However, the contact between the cousins ‘diminished significantly’ while Miss Barnsley was at the care home.
Mr Jackson said: ‘Miss Barnsley clearly became more isolated from her daily connections in the community.’
Miss Woolley began to have ‘concerns’ when she read the will and noticed she had been referred to as her ‘adopted cousin’ – a term she insisted Miss Barnsley never used.
Ms Slaney-Summers also stole around £6,000 by making withdrawals from Miss Barnsley’s bank account by using her card, the court heard.
Defence attorney Henry Skudra said: ‘It was Slaney Summers who was the driving force behind what was going on.
‘The Walkers were involved in the latter stages and were not involved in the forgery of the will.
‘Mercifully Miss Barnsley was not aware of what had happened.
‘Both the defendants are of good character. Each of them have led blameless lives before what was rather an opportunist crime.
‘Decades of hard work and reputations ruined.’
He said both the Walkers had health issues with Mr Walker having been hospitalised nine times in 2025.
He had also recently had an operation which had resulted in his bowel and intestine removed.
Mr Skudra said Mrs Walker had worked in the care industry for 52 years and was a carer for her husband.
