Care home manager jailed for 5.5 years after forging will to steal £178,000 from pensioner
Jamiel Slaney-Summers, 65, was jailed for more than five years after she forged the will of 85-year-old Rita Barnsley to steal her life savings in one of the UK’s biggest elder fraud cases.
A manipulative care home manager who fabricated a pensioner’s will to embezzle £178,000 has been sentenced to more than five years behind bars.
Jamiel Slaney-Summers, 65, together with Graham Walker, 74, and his wife Lyn, 71, conspired to defraud vulnerable 85-year-old Rita Barnsley. Authorities described it as one of the UK’s most significant cases of elder fraud.
The three individuals - who operated Amberley Care Home in Brierley Hill, West Mids - created a "dodgy" will to seize Ms Barnsley’s £178,000 life savings. Their scheme aimed to secure the majority of the estate, which comprised her £150,000 property and £28,000 in savings.
The will, branded a "sham" during court proceedings, was littered with varying handwriting styles and different colored pens. It surfaced the day following Rita’s death in 2021 and designated Mrs. Walker and Slaney-Summers as executors and primary beneficiaries.
A jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court convicted all three of fraud. Slaney-Summers, from Northfield, West Mids, was today handed a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
Judge John Butterfield KC stated: "It is no coincidence that the defendant left her employment. She sanctimoniously dressed up her true motivation. There is no avoiding the disturbing extent to which lies dripped from your tongue."
The judge noted that she "groomed and isolated" Ms Barnsley after forming the belief that the victim was "well off".
Judge Butterfield told her: "The victim was particularly vulnerable with failing eyesight and when the false will was created she was frail. You exploited that."
The scam came to light after Ms Barnsley’s 82-year-old cousin Verna Woolley alerted Dudley Council’s Trading Standards team. Investigators also discovered that Slaney-Summers had siphoned off £6,000 from Ms Barnsley’s bank accounts, which she squandered on online Bingo.
She claimed she used the money to buy Ms Barnsley flowers every Friday and on incontinence pads but was found guilty of theft.
The court was told Rita had been admitted to the home in May 2020 following illness. Yet rather than receiving proper care, she fell victim to financial abuse at the hands of those supposedly looking after her.
Rita died on August 5, 2021, and the following day her will disclosed that her estate was being divided up amongst her carers. The will left Slaney-Summers 50 percent of Rita’s estate and Mrs. Walker 25 percent, as well as £5,000 to the care home staff.
Trading Standards officials identified multiple "red flags" in the will which resulted in the Walkers and Slaney-Summers being arrested. The Walkers, both from Cradley, West Mids, will be sentenced together at a later date after Graham Walker was taken to A&E on Thursday.
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