By Annabal Bagdi

Copyright birminghammail

Care home bosses allegedly plotted to get hold of an elderly woman’s £175,000 fortune by ‘forging’ her last will and testament, a court has heard. Owners Graham Walker and Lyn Walker, along with manager Jamiel Slaney-Summers, ‘financially abused’ 85-year-old Rita Barnsley, prosecutors say. The trio are said to have penned Ms Barnsley’s ‘sham’ will in ‘different coloured pens’ and with ‘different writing’ while she was living at Amberley Care Home, in Brierley Hill. The care home’s own policy even prohibited all employees from receiving gifts from any of the elderly and vulnerable people they were caring for. Opening the case on behalf of Dudley Council at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Monday, September 29, prosecutor Mark Jackson said: “Each of the defendants held a position of responsibility at the care home. “They each held a responsibility for each of the elderly and vulnerable people living there. “They each occupied a position of trust.” He added: “We cannot establish when the document pretending to be Ms Barnsley’s last will and testament was created. “We cannot establish who wrote what in the will and when they did so.” But he urged jurors to come to ‘common sense conclusions’, adding: “What’s clear is that the document is little more than an attempt to fleece Ms Barnsley’s estate.” All three defendants deny fraud between May 1, 2020, and December 7, 2021. Slaney-Summers also denies a further charge of theft between May 5, 2020, and July 31, 2021. The court heard how ‘vulnerable’ Ms Barnsley moved into the care home, in Stourbridge Road, after becoming unwell in May 2020. At the time, Graham Walker and Lyn Walker owned the care home, while Slaney-Summers was the registered manager. Ms Barnsley had cash in bank accounts and owned property worth ‘in excess of £150,000’, Mr Jackson said. Her last will and testament was reportedly made on January 12, 2021. In it, Lyn Walker and Slaney-Summers were appointed as executors of the will. Mr Jackson said: “Say for a few modest legacies, it left Lyn Walker, the owner of the care home, 25 per cent of Ms Barnsley’s estate, with 50 per cent of Ms Barnsley’s estate being left to Slaney-Summers. “The gain being made by Lyn Walker and Slaney-Summers as a result of the fraud was the lion’s share of something like £175,000.” According to the will, Ms Barnsley said she left part of her estate to Slaney-Summers ‘for the happiness and laughter she gave me, she became a good friend’. Ms Barnsley was also said to have included Lyn Walker in her will ‘for allowing me to stay in her lovely home’. Staff at the care home were also left £5,000, the court heard. A policy on accepting gifts was in place at the care home in order to ‘safeguard vulnerable service users’. It stated that staff could not accept ‘gifts of money’ and that any gifts should be ‘politely declined’. But the care home’s policy was ‘simple ignored’ when the defendants were able to ‘line their pockets’, Mr Jackson alleged. Ms Barnsley’s only living relative and next of kin was her cousin Verna, who had been adopted into the family. But their contact ‘diminished significantly’ while Ms Barnsley was at the care home. Mr Jackson said: “Ms Barnsley clearly became more isolated from her daily connections in the community.” Verna, who is in her 80s, told how Ms Barnsley’s stay at the care home was only expected to be ‘temporary’. Due to her agoraphobia, she could not visit Ms Barnsley at home, so she would speak to her on her mobile. But this allegedly stopped when she was told that Ms Barnsley ‘no longer had a phone’. Verna then had to call the care home directly and often was ‘not allowed to speak to’ her cousin, Mr Jackson alleged. It seemed to Verna that staff would ‘make excuses as to why she could not speak to Rita’, the prosecutor added. Slaney-Summers is said to have called Verna in November 2020 to say that without a will, ‘the Government will take all of Rita’s estate’. But that was not true, Mr Jackson told jurors. Slaney-Summers is also said to have sent Verna a text message with details of Ms Barnsley’s funeral in Perry Barr following her death in August 2021. This left Verna ‘upset’ as she ‘knew what Rita’s preferred funeral plans were’ and due to her agoraphobia, she could not attend. Verna began to have ‘concerns’ when she read Ms Barnsley’s will and noticed she had been referred to as her ‘adopted cousin’ – a term she insisted Ms Barnsley never used. Two care home employees named on the will as witnesses said they did not know what they were signing and only did so because they had been asked by their manager, jurors heard. The trial was told that the ‘Walkers are seeking to blame Slaney-Summers’ and she is ‘seeking to blame them’. All three have since ‘asserted’ that they ‘never wanted any of Rita’s money’, Mr Jackson said. He added: “Once they realised that their criminal conduct was being investigated, their subsequent actions in interview were nothing more than trying to cover their tracks’. Slaney-Summers, 65, of Raven Hays Road, Birmingham, stopped working at the care home in September 2021. She sent a letter to Dudley Council three months later, insisting she left her role ‘because of concerns she had about the honesty and integrity of Lyn Walker’. In interview, she insisted Ms Barnsley would ‘never’ have left anything in her will to Lyn Walker because she ‘hated living’ at the care home. She said she ‘made it clear’ that she was not happy about being an executor to the will. Slaney-Summers is also accused of stealing about £6,000 by making withdrawals from Ms Barnsley’s bank account, using her bank card. She said she only withdrew cash from Ms Barnsley’s account from a cashpoint near her home in Northfield to ‘cover her back’. She said she would travel from her home to the care home, collect Ms Barnsley’s card, travel back to Northfield and make a withdrawal before returning to the care home. Graham Walker, 74, of Ribberford Close, Halesowen, said that he ‘did not really know’ Ms Barnsley and would only say hello when he went into her room to check the radiator. He alleged Slaney-Summers pulled Ms Barnsley’s will from a filing cabinet in the care home’s office and that he had said ‘it was not right, it should have been done by a solicitor’. Lyn Walker, 71, also of Ribberford Close, Halesowen, claimed she did not know Ms Barnsley ‘other than to say hi if she saw her’. Mr Jackson told jurors: “What’s clear is, it was not until the defendants became aware that the will was being challenged by Verna, she was complaining about it to anyone who would listen – CQC, local authority, police – no doubt from their point of view, it was inevitable that an investigation was going to be carried out. “It is only then that they changed their tune.” The trial continues. Don’t miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the BirminghamLive newsletter here .