Ex-head girl who forged headmistress’ will in bid to claim £4.2m estate with 7-bed home loses court battle with family
A PRIVATE school head girl who faked her ex-headmistress's will in a plot to swipe her £4million estate has been jailed for six and a half years.
Leigh Voysey, 46, wrote bogus final wishes for ailing Maureen Renny and asked friends to be false witnesses during a two-year plot to win the fortune from her grieving family.
The founder of the fee-paying Barn School, who died aged 82 in January 2020, left behind a huge £4.2million fund – including a sprawling £2.3m mansion in sleepy Much Hadham, Herts.
Mum-of-one Voysey convinced Stansted Airport security officer Amber Collingwood and pal Ben Mayes to support her legal fight after claiming she “deserved it”.
The respected teacher returned home to her grand Hill House property after refusing long-term hospital treatment following a stroke in July 2019 and died in January 2020.
The trio were sentenced at St. Albans Crown Court on Thursday after pleading guilty on day seven of a three-week trial for forgery and fraud at St Albans crown court.
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Voysey, Mayes, 42, and Collingwood, 44, claimed the critically ill OAP had legally signed over her whole estate on a DIY will kit in September 2019, despite her being too sick to write.
The Homebase shelf stacker sued the Renny family in 2021 and challenged her real will, sparking a bitter High Court fight.
Her family reported the claim to fraud police who launched a criminal probe over the “crude” handwritten last wishes.
The fraudster claimed she reconnected with her former tutor nearly three decades after she left school when she took a one-off job with a care agency.
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She said she later went back as a pal when the school founder suddenly declared she would pass the whole estate to her.
After she was nicked in 2022, Voysey told cops: “I went round there one day to talk to her, not about a will. She spoke to me about the will.
“She said, ‘I want to leave you the property. I’m concerned that if I don’t leave it to you, someone will try to develop on it’.
"She wanted me to have this. Whether she wanted me to have this because she wanted me to live there, I don’t know.
“She wanted it to remain as a school or a house.
“I was very close to her. She made me head girl. I didn’t force her to do it.”
Ms Renny’s February 2016 will divided the money between her cousins Gillian Ayre, Angela Eastwood and Susan Vickers, and the children of her stepson, Thomas Renny, and his wife Katherine.
Prosecutor Stefan Weidmann said: “The crown contends Ms Voysey never set foot in Hill House again after that 2016 shift as a carer.
“Leigh Voysey, together with her co-defendants, wrote a will purporting to be the last will of Ms Renny.
“That fake will gave the whole estate – lock, stock and barrel – to Leigh Voysey.
“Although it was dated the 12th of September 2019, it’s not exactly known when that will was forged.
“The fake will was written out by Ms Collingwood, who signed on behalf of the incapacitated testator, then further signed as a witness.”
"In earlier wills, the money was to be spread between her family and a number of charities that all stood to benefit.
“Each defendant maintained the fiction that this will was correct.
"Leigh Voysey stood to become a multi-millionaire."
Gillian Ayre, who was an executor on Ms Renny’s real will, told the court of the claim: “I was aghast. I didn’t give it any credence at first… it was ridiculous.
“Defending this fraudulent civil claim, and supporting the criminal case, has consumed my life.
“I have lived with the fear of having to pay the money left rightfully to me by my cousin.
“I have found it hard to believe that an incredulous claim has gained this much momentum.”
Thomas Renny, 31, added the inheritance helped him and his wife buy their “dream” home.
He went on: “The life we had worked so hard to build was on the brink of collapsing.
“The likelihood of having to quit our jobs and lives, and move back in with my parents was becoming more realistic.
“I often find myself wishing I had never been left any inheritance in the first place.
“The feeling I have about what should have been a final gift has now turned to bitterness.”
Anne Faul, mitigating for Voysey, told the court she had no previous convictions and had a 10-year-old daughter.
Adding she already faced at least a £100,000 bill from the botched High Court case, Ms Faul said: “What started as Ms Voysey saying she had a claim on this property… she foolishly entered into litigation.
“She feels awful. She feels terrible with regard to what’s happened here.
“She will be in financial ruin as a result of these foolish proceedings.
There’s no other way to describe them.
“At this stage of her life, having worked very hard, having felt she did the right thing by her daughter, to find herself in this position (is difficult for her).
“This was not a sophisticated offence, but it went on far longer than it should have done.
“Ms Voysey is not a sophisticated woman.
“She’s somewhat naive and misguided. There are still potential issues there for her.
“She deeply regrets her actions.”
The court heard Ms Collingwood also had no convictions while Mayes was previously guilty of dishonesty and a Class A drug offence.
Sentencing the trio, Judge Jonathan Mann said: “This was an attempt to steal £4.2million from the beneficiaries of Ms Renny’s estate.
“You can call it forgery. You can call it fraud. It was an attempt to steal from someone who was no longer alive.
“It may well be that seeing Ms Renny in the way she was – that is, frail – that the gem of an idea occurred to her to steal the estate.
“This was a plan to steal millions of pounds for your own benefit and deprive those relatives and charities of that money.
“The evidence against you was overwhelming. There were documents from an ‘at-home’ will kit found at your properties.
“There were documents in your homes setting out what to say if asked – a script to follow.
“I find it arrogant that you have pursued a criminal trial in the face of this evidence.
“If I sound like I have little sympathy for the three of you, you are right. I have little sympathy for you.”
He added Ms Renny’s family had been put through “years of stress” and lost their “life savings over nothing”.
Voysey – the “main mover” behind the scheme – was jailed for six-and-a-half years for fraud.
She was given a concurrent term of four-and-a-half years for forgery and smiled at her family as she was led from the dock.
Collingwood and Mayes were handed three years and two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment respectively for forgery.
Fraud charges against the dodgy witnesses were dropped.
During the trial, the court heard Voysey had told her pals she would “win a mansion” from the fraud – adding that she “deserved it”.
Her Homebase co-worker Fiona House, who called police after reading about the case in the news, said: “Leigh told me she has something very big to tell me and that it was a secret.
“She went on to say that she was going to win a mansion and an estate. She said she was going to do a fake will.
“I asked her why, and she said because she deserved it." Voysey must also pay a £100,000 legal bill from the civil case after it was closed at the High Court earlier this week.
Hill House was snapped up by property development group Hill Residential in March 2021 for £2.25m.
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The house was separated from the surrounding land, which was sold for £975,000 in January 2022.
It will be turned into 30 new homes and a “large public park”.
