Couple guilty of forging wills of dead pensioners (From Your Local Guardian)

Couple guilty of forging wills of dead Thornton Heath pensioner

9:12am Tuesday 27th September 2011 in News

Husband and wife fraudsters have been convicted of taking £800,000 from the estates of two dead pensioners.

Georgia Forteath and her husband Harvill Connally, both of Drakefell Road, Lewisham, were found guilty of fraud at Inner London Crown Court.

Forteath forged a will of Frederick Jospeh Lewis with her as executor of his house in Woodville Road, Thornton Heath and pocket money from the estate amounting to £500,000.

The 31-year-old drained all of the bank accounts and when officers began to investigate her, documents were found showing that she was also attempting to transfer ownership of Mr Lewis's house into her name and had been updating it to increase its sale value.

Forteath and Connally, 39, had also named a co-executor on Mr Lewis's will as a Doreen Kimber from Malvern Road, Thornton Heath.

But Mrs Kimber had also recently passed away and it became clear that Connally was named as the owner of Doreen's property on Malvern Road.

He had also placed the property up for sale for £220,000. The solicitor's signature on Mrs Kimber’s will had also been faked.

Forteath and Connally were living in Doreen's property using the dead woman's direct debit card to pay for goods from Argos such as a laptop and a washing machine.

Detective Constable Andrew Birks, investigating officer said: "A jury has convicted these two defendants who since arriving in this country from Jamaica have involved themselves in a lifestyle of crime and deceit.

"An illegitimate daughter was invented by them for Mr Lewis. This was quite simply disgusting and created a lot of heartache for his family until police could establish the lies.

"My sympathy goes out to both families in this case and I now hope that the families can move on with its own memories of their loved ones in their hearts and minds rather than the spurious lies concocted by these two.”

On September 23, Forteath was convicted of 23 indictments of fraud and Connally was found guilty of fraud and money laundering in relation to £180,000.

Blob Detectives are also seeking information as to the whereabouts of Tifina Zlatanova, 45 who is a Bulgarian national, of slim build with long dark hair. She is believed to have been involved in the fraud on Doreen Kimber's estate as she was named as a co-executor on the fraudulent will by Forteath.

Tifina may have travelled to the north London area and would ask anyone with any information to call police on 020 8649 2147 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.