A former probate manager who used her position to defraud £640,000 from wills beneficiaries has been jailed for four years.
Laurna Porter, who worked for two firms while she carried out her crimes, conspired with her friend Julie Atkins to take money intended for charities such as Cancer Research and Great Ormond Street Hospital.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Porter, 68, paid cheques into Atkins’ account with a portion of this money later transferred back to her.
The offences were uncovered when Porter moved from Dewes Sketchley to Glaisyers – both based in Tamworth – and a discrepancy was discovered with one of the wills involving a £5,000 payment to Atkins. An audit by both firms found fraudulent money transfers over 13 years involving 23 wills.
The CPS said Porter targeted testators without close family where she thought the fraud would go unnoticed, with the payments usually disguised in the accounts as a debt owed by the estate or a gift.
Specialist prosecutor Anamarie Coomansingh from the CPS said: ‘This was a calculated fraud over a period of 13 years, which generated a significant amount of money. Laurna Porter breached her legal duties as a probate manager and abused her position of trust in taking funds from life-saving charities, as well as from families of the deceased.
‘It must have been particularly distressing for the families and friends, who simply wanted to see their loved one’s last wishes properly executed.’
She said that the CPS will now seek to recover any available criminal proceeds from Porter and Atkins, who are both from Tamworth.
Porter, who was barred from the legal profession by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2020, pleaded guilty to fraud and was jailed for four years at Wolverhampton Crown Court. Atkins, 68, was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 30 months.
In a statement, Glaisyers Solicitors said irregular activities were discovered in 2018 on a ‘very small’ number of files managed by Porter. She was dismissed and her activities reported to the police and SRA. She had been with the firm for one year and previously with Dewes Sketchley Solicitors for almost 10 years.
Glaisyers said Porter had personally repaid a ‘significant sum’ of money to the firm and any shortfall has been recovered through indemnity insurance cover. ‘We can confirm that all clients affected by these criminal actions have been notified by this firm and the police and fully reimbursed by us,’ said the firm. ‘Therefore we can be confident that no client or innocent beneficiary will have lost out anything financially at all.’
The firm praised the work of Staffordshire Police in investigating the issue and added: ‘We remain however appalled that Lauran Porter breached her obligations of trust not just to this firm but to all her employers across the town, also to the vulnerable clients who had placed their faith in her over matters of legal advice.’
Glaisyers Solicitors of Tamworth is an independent firm and has no links to Glaisyers Solicitors LLP from Manchester or Glaisyers LLP based in Birmingham.
