THREE cruel care home bosses isolated a vulnerable pensioner from her family before stealing her £175,000 estate.
Graham Walker, 74, his wife Lyn, 71, and ex-manager Jamiel Slaney-Summers, 65, plotted to scam frail 85-year-old Rita Barnsley.
The heartless trio – who ran Amberley Care Home in Brierley Hill, West Midlands – drew up a “dodgy” will to snatch Rita’s life savings.
With no immediate family and a valuable estate, the pensioner’s arrival at the care home in May 2020 soon placed her in the crosshairs of Slaney-Summers.
At the same time, the mobile phone that Rita had entered with disappeared and efforts of her only living relative to speak to her through the main home telephone were continually frustrated.
“They wouldn’t let me speak to her on the phone,” her cousin, Verna Woolley said.
The 82-year-old added: ”There was always an excuse as to why I couldn’t speak to her.”
Woolley, who suffers from agoraphobia – the fear of busy, public spaces – could not visit Rita during this time.
She told Channel 4: “You can see from her photograph how frail she was.
“If it wasn’t for that, I would have gone down and helped her, and this would never have happened.”
The Walkers and Slaney-Summers then created a fake document in order to steal her £175,000 estate, Wolverhamption Crown court heard.
Described as a “sham” in court, the document was produced the day after Rita died in August 2021.
It would have made heartless Slaney-Summers and Walker the executors and the main beneficiaries of the will.
And attempts to execute her will were made just four days after the 85-year-old’s death by the cruel trio.
Ruthless Slaney-Summers had also withdrawn cash directly from Barnsley’s bank account, totalling £6,000.
The scam was exposed thanks to Rita’s cousin Verna, who raised the alarm with Dudley Council’s Trading Standards team – sparking one of the biggest elder fraud investigations ever seen in the UK.
All three defendants were found guilty by a jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
Late last month, a jury at Wolverhampton crown court unanimously convicted Graham and Lyn and its former manager, Jamiel Slaney-Summers, for fraud and theft.
They will be sentenced in December for the financial abuse of Rita, who paid them £700 a week for her care.
Slaney-Summers was due to receive 50 per cent of Rita’s estate, while Mrs Walker would get 25 per cent.
A sum of £5,000 was also left to the care home staff.
The court heard Rita had moved into the care home in May 2020 after falling ill.
Woolley was her only surviving family member and due to her agoraphobia, Rita was left isolated from the outside world.
However instead of receiving care, she was financially abused by the very people meant to protect her.
‘HORRIFIC ABUSE’
When Rita died in August 2021, Slaney-Summers telephoned Woolley with the news.
The care home manager organised the funeral herself, which Woolley believes was not in keeping with her cousin’s wishes.
The following month, on September 7, 2021, Woolley received Barnsley’s will in the post from a solicitors’ firm.
She saw that the bulk of the estate had been left to the care home bosses.
Rita’s signatures were also inconsistent, and the document appeared to have been written in different people’s handwriting.
Trading Standards officers uncovered several “red flags” in the will which led to the Walkers and Slaney-Summers being arrested.
Speaking afterwards, Councillor Phil Atkins, cabinet member responsible for trading standards at Dudley Council, said: “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.”
The trio will be sentenced on December 5.
