Firm stole £5m from bereaved families

SFO launches criminal inquiry into probate service that 'spirited money away'

A criminal inquiry has been launched by the Serious Fraud Office into a legal services company that stole nearly £5m from the estates and families of the dead.

The SFO inquiry began after the company, Legacies (Will & Probate Services), was wound up by the High Court earlier this month following the discovery that £4.8m had been taken from about 230 client accounts.

Nearly £4m of that money was used to cover up the company's continuous trading losses dating back to 1995 but money was also to used to prop up several other ailing and insolvent companies owned by its directors, as well as loans to its three directors.

The companies included one small share-dealing firm, City Shareshop of Brentwood, Essex, which was run by a Legacies director called Paul Flint, of Great Dunmow, Essex. It was given £740,000 from Legacies' client funds but has now been declared insolvent.

During the winding-up proceedings, the High Court judge Mr Registrar William Jacques said: "They were preying on people when they were most vulnerable. After death, they got the power of attorney and spirited the money away."

James Earp, a liquidator from Grant Thornton, an accounting firm now investigating the company's losses, said yesterday: "It's one of the worst cases I have seen. There is clear evidence of falsification of the company's books and records, which is a breach of the Companies Act, and there's clear evidence that the company traded while the directors had knowledge of its insolvency."

Legacies, which was set up in 1991 and traded in Brentwood and Cardiff, paid funeral directors commissions to be introduced to the families of the dead. They then took over the often-complicated wills and probate work from the estates.

Legacies owes its clients, mostly grieving relatives and heirs, about £5.5m but, on 1 March, it had only £716,000 in its client account. The missing money was transferred from its client account to the firm's current account.

By the time its accounts were frozen by the companies investigation branch of the Department of Trade and Industry in March, only £300,000 could be found. Despite the losses, Grant Thornton has been able to recover records such as deeds of houses and insurance policies.

The SFO will focus on the activities of Mr Flint and his co-directors, finance director Nicholas Furr, 36, from Luton, and Barry Williamson, 43, of Hockley, Essex. They run 16 other companies, including The Probate Advisory Service and the UK Probate Bureau.

The SFO has investigated similar cases involving solicitors. In June 2000, Alan Scott Whittington, from Bournemouth, was jailed for two years for stealing £2m from client accounts. In April 1999, a West End solicitor, Michael James Palmer, was jailed for three years for stealing £250,000 from the trust funds for two orphaned children. In December 1995, Graham Ford, who ran nine offices in Hastings, was imprisoned for 10 years after stealing £5m from the estates of dead clients.