A woman who forged her former school headmistress’ will with the help of friends in a bid to pocket her £4.2million fortune has been jailed for six and a half years.
Privately educated Leigh Voysey, 45, claimed her former headteacher Maureen Renny left her an entire estate, including a plush £2.25million seven-bed house, to stop the teacher’s family selling it to developers.
Voysey alleged the headteacher had ‘always favoured her,’ giving her the best parts in class plays, appointing her head girl and prefect and that she ‘reconnected’ with her old mentor by chance during the last three years of her life.
But when Mrs Renny died in January 2020 aged 82, her family suspected foul play regarding her 2019 will – which was described as being ‘bought from a shop’ – and reported the former Barn School pupil to police.
Mrs Renny’s sprawling home Hill House, in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, was until 1998 site of The Barn School, which Ms Voysey attended as a girl, starting as an eight-year-old.
The former pupil claimed Mrs Renny asked her to write out a will, but that she did not want to accept that her former mentor was going to die.
Voysey alleged later in September 2019, the ex-teacher arranged for two of her friends, airport security guard Amber Collingwood, 44, and Ben Mayes, 42, to witness a new will as she did not want anyone to know she was making it.
But Mrs Renny’s family were suspicious and claimed a previous will from 2016 – benefiting animal charities, cousins Gillian Ayre, Angela Eastwood and Susan Vickers, and the children of her stepson, Thomas and Katherine Renny – was her last true will.
They said the trio’s story of of arriving to find the will on a bedside table was impossible as Mrs Renny was so infirm she could not even hold a phone to her ear at the time.
Leigh Voysey was head girl at the Barn School and claimed her former headteacher had taken a shine to her
She attended the Barn School in Much Hadham (pictured, the seven-bedroom property that had housed the school)
The family reported the incident to police, as they said Voysey, who worked for a DIY store, had had no contact with Mrs Renny after leaving the school other than one lunchtime caring shift at Hill House in 2016.
Earlier this year, Voysey was tried alongside airport security officer Collingwood and friend Mayes at St Albans Crown Court, with all three pleading guilty seven days into the trial to forgery, and Voysey alone to fraud.
She has since been jailed for six-and-a-half years for fraud and forgery.
Sentencing her at St Albans Crown Court today, Judge Jonathan Mann KC said: ‘You can call it forgery, you can call it fraud, but what it was was an attempt to steal £4.2million from someone who was no longer alive.’
Along with a criminal record, mother-of-one Voysey has now been left with £200,000 court bill – half of which has to be paid upfront – after a judge ruled in favour of an earlier will that an earlier will naming the teacher’s relatives as beneficiaries.
Judge Mann also sentenced Collingwood to three years and Mayes to two-and-a-half years behind bars.
Sentencing, he said it must have come as a ‘terrible shock’ to Mrs Renny’s family to learn of the claim 18 months after she died, based on a ‘crude’ hand-written, shop-bought will document.
Voysey was described by the judge as the ‘main mover,’ with Collingwood writing out the will and witnessing it, and Mayes also claiming to be a witness.
He said Voysey had ‘effectively importuned Collingwood and Mayes to lie,’ adding: ‘They did, but they might not have done so had you not asked them to do so.
‘The efforts made by you to pursue that false claim were considerable,’ he told the trio.
‘This isn’t a case of signing a document and doing no more. It’s a case of signing a document, writing letters to solicitors containing lies and agreeing to pursue the matter through the civil courts.
‘It is plain to me that this wasn’t just a case of supplying a false will to a firm of solicitors, it was a commitment to pursue the lies and misrepresentations all the way.
‘It was a commitment to lie in court, a commitment to provide false statements, all in a pernicious attempt to steal millions of pounds from an old, vulnerable person and deprive her family and all those charities of all that money.
‘Your scheme went on for years and caused them very real psychological difficulties. There are victims here, very real victims.’
Earlier, the judge had heard victim impact statements read by some of Mrs Renny’s family.
Cousin Gillian Ayres said she had been ‘aghast’ to hear that a claim was being made about Mrs Renny’s will, when she had been closely involved in her care for years.
The school operated until 1998 (pictured: a historical photograph of the school and its grounds)
‘I didn’t give it any credence at first as it seemed so ridiculous,’ she said. ‘This began three-and-a-half years of distress and upset.’
She said it had ‘consumed my life’ and had ‘virtually ruined the last three years of my life,’ causing a constant feeling of ‘anxiety and upset at the injustice.’
Mrs Renny’s grandson Thomas Renny said fighting the civil claim brought by Voysey had brought him ‘to the brink of financial ruin.’
‘I have never felt so threatened by people I have never seen or heard of before,’ he told the judge.
Lawyers for the three defendants said they had shown remorse for what they did and would not offend again, with Voysey and Collingwood both of good character.
Mayes had convictions for drugs offences, but is receiving treatment for issues with substances and alcohol.
At the High Court yesterday, Master Karen Shuman ruled this was the case, decrying Voysey’s ‘elaborate story’ of reconnecting with her former mentor as ‘false’.
In her claim, Ms Voysey said she had bonded with her former headteacher after visiting her as a carer and then a friend from 2016 and that she wrote her ‘distant blood relatives’ out of her will because she feared they would sell the old schoolhouse to developers.
In papers lodged with the court, Ms Voysey told how she was delighted to find that her former teacher still remembered her when she visited as a carer.
‘Mrs Renny remembered exactly who I was, even though it was 25 years since I’d left her school,’ she said.
‘Mrs Renny told me that she’d been asking about me during the years since I had left her school.
‘The whole experience that day was very touching. I worked one more shift as a carer for Mrs Renny, then visited her as a friend after that.
‘After reconnecting in February 2016, I visited Mrs Renny when I could…approximately three to four times a year.
‘When I visited Mrs Renny, I would make us both a cup of tea and we would talk about my time when I was at The Barn. We both enjoyed that immensely.
‘During one of my visits, she asked me what I thought about The Barn, i.e. Hill House, and I said I loved it. Mrs Renny said to me: ‘I hope it never gets built on’.’
She said Mrs Renny had mentioned leaving her estate to her in a new will, but that she did not want to accept that her former mentor was going to die.
But eventually in September 2019, the former teacher arranged for two of Ms Voysey’s friends to witness a new will as she did not want anyone to know she was making it.
Mrs Renny’s family successfully contested the false will, with the first will set to benefit the headteacher’s family including cousin Angela Eastwood (pictured)
‘Mrs Renny asked me to complete the 2019 will and dictated to me what she wanted to be written on it,’ she said. Voysey had further claimed the teacher could not write the will herself as her eyesight was failing.
Kate Barrister KC, for Mrs Renny’s family, denied Voysey had ‘any ongoing acquaintance’ with her former headmistress after leaving the school – save for one shift as a carer.
‘It is averred that the only other material time that the deceased and the claimant met was on 19th February 2016 when the claimant was working as a carer…and worked a lunchtime shift looking after the deceased that day,’ she said.
‘The claimant cared for the deceased only once for a few hours over lunchtime on 19th February 2016.
‘The claimant undertook no more shifts as a carer for the deceased and never visited the deceased again.’
She said the 2019 will was in Ms Voysey’s handwriting and witnessed by two of her friends, who were not known to Mrs Renny.
The court had previously been told Mrs Renny had suffered a stroke in July 2019 and had become ‘delusional’ as her health declined thereafter.
Master Shuman, giving summary judgment for Mrs Renny’s family on their claim that the 2016 will was her last true will, said Voysey’s claim over the 2019 will had been struck out following her criminal conviction.
She said Voysey had put forward an ‘elaborate story of reconnecting with her former headmistress and that led to a change in the will.’
‘She indicated that the witnesses attended her home and she drove them to the deceased,’ she continued.
‘They met the deceased in the lounge and that’s where the 2019 will was executed. What that has proved to be is false.
‘The significant change in the backdrop to this case is that the claimant was convicted on 15 October 2024 for forgery and fraud in respect of the 2019 will.
‘The conviction for forging the will is admissible in the civil proceedings as evidence of the forgery.
‘As a result of that, I struck out the claim because it was based on a false premise that the 2019 will was a valid will, when it wasn’t.’
Susan Vickers, another cousin of Maureen Renny, who will now benefit from the real will, which was produced in 2016
She then went on to grant probate in ‘solemn form’ of the 2016 will benefiting Mrs Renny’s family – declaring that the 2016 will was valid and that there were no concerns about Mrs Renny’s capacity to make it or her understanding of its contents.
‘The 2019 will couldn’t be more different from that,’ she added. ‘It appears to be something taken from the internet or bought from a shop.’
Ordering that Voysey pay the family’s claimed £197,000 lawyers’ bills on the tough ‘indemnity’ basis, the judge told her over a videolink: ‘You have put up a forged will as being a true will. Something is out of the norm when a forged will is used to mount a claim in court.’
The exact costs figure will be assessed at a later date, but Mrs Renny’s family claims the legal fees are around £197,000. Voysey is awaiting sentence over her criminal convictions.
Hill House was bought by developers Hill Residential in March 2021 for £2.25m; the house was subsequently separated from adjoining land and sold for £975,000 in January 2022.
Hill Residential states on its website that it now plans to build 30 news homes plus a ‘large public park’ on the land it acquired.
