Ex-policewoman jailed for forging wills

Ex-policewoman jailed for forging wills

Topping was linked to three wills and benefited by £91,700

A former Metropolitan Police officer who teamed up with her lesbian lover to forge wills for estates worth £700,000 has been jailed for three years.

Using an old typewriter, Sarah Topping helped forge a number of wills, naming herself and friends as beneficiaries, London's Blackfriars Crown Court heard.

Topping, 36, of School Lane, Horton Kirby, Kent, was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to defraud between February 2000 and May 2001.

The former Clubs and Vice Unit constable, who was linked to three wills, had benefited by £91,700.

You like risks...they give you a buzz and I suspect it is as much in that context that you were drafted into this matter

Judge Alan Hitching

She worked in partnership with her girlfriend Melanie Leighton, 24, and Andrew Short, a 31-year-old postman and father-of-one from Tickfield Avenue in Southend, Essex.

Short, who benefited on one occasion, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and was jailed for 12 months.

Leighton died in a motorbike accident before she could be prosecuted.

The court heard Leighton worked for a Treasury department called the Bona Vacantia, which searched the homes of those who had died without leaving an obvious will or next-of-kin.

Wills planted in homes

The prosecution said it was the perfect cover for a "novel and highly unusual" fraud, allowing her to place fraudulent wills in the homes of four dead people to be found by a colleague.

By the time the three were arrested, they had plundered their victims' bank accounts, sold jewellery, disposed of one house and were about to sell another, the court heard.

Sentencing, Judge Alan Hitching told Topping she had been convicted on "totally overwhelming" evidence.

He said: "You have a streak about you which is a risk-taker. You like risks. They give you a buzz and I suspect it is as much in that context that you were drafted into this matter...and then you couldn't get out."

Colleague alerted superiors

The judge said although Short's involvement had been less, prison was unavoidable.

The court heard the plot was uncovered after a former colleague of Topping's alerted her superiors when she was unexpectedly named in a will.

Investigators then found Topping had been left jewellery and more than £40,000 by Lydia Cottingham, of Eastbourne, East Sussex.

The pensioner had also left the former policewoman her £62,000 home, which Topping was about to sell when arrested.

Further inquiries led to Leighton, who had written a bogus will for Eric Hatwell's £160,000 estate in Southall, Middlesex.

Short was the beneficiary of William Newman's estate in Canvey Island, Essex.

The court heard that since her arrest Topping has paid back more than £47,000 and Short had repaid most of his cut of £30,000, the court heard.