Care home bosses jailed for £175,000 pensioner fraud
A married couple have been jailed for three years each for their involvement in the execution of a fraudulent £175,000 will for a pensioner in their care.
Graham and Lyn Walker, the owners of Amberley Care Home in Brierley Hill, have also been ordered to pay £60,000 to Dudley Council towards the costs of bringing the case to court.
The couple, along with former care home manager Jamiel Slaney-Summers, attempted to benefit from a fake will for resident Rita Barnsley which named the trio as significant beneficiaries.
Graham Walker, 74, and Lyn Walker, 71, both of Ribbesford Close, Halesowen, had pleaded not guilty to fraud but were found guilty by a jury following a trial in October.
They both appeared at Birmingham Crown Court today to be sentenced.
Slaney-Summers, 65, of Raven Hays Road, Birmingham, was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison for her part in the fraud in December.
Ms Barnsley moved into the Stourbridge Road care home after becoming unwell in May 2020. The 85-year-old’s last will and testament was a “sham” with different handwriting and coloured pens used throughout. It named Slaney-Summers and Lyn Walker as executors, with the duo to get 50 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.
They stood to benefit to the tune of around £175,000 from the plans laid out in the will, prosecutors told the court.
An investigation was launched by Dudley Council’s trading standards team after Ms Barnsley’s only surviving relative, her cousin Verna, made a complaint.
Councillor Phil Atkins, cabinet member for development and regulation, said:
“I welcome the decision of the judge today.
“It brings to an end a long and painstaking investigation by our superb trading standards team to bring these three people to justice.
“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.
“Instead they financially abused her and would have taken everything she had but for the dogged determination of her cousin and our trading standards team.
“This case is a warning that as a council we will not tolerate elder abuse.”