Ex-head girl accused of faking old headmistress' will in bid for her £4.2million estate
| Published date | 31 March 2022 |
| Publication title | Daily Mirror, The: Web Edition Articles (London, England) |
However, Leigh Voysey, 42, claims it was left to her to save it from developers.
The sprawling Hill House in Much Hadham, Herts, was the site of The Barn School until 1998.
Ms Voysey started attending the school in 1987, when she was eight.
The mum-of-one claims Mrs Renny had "always favoured her," giving her the best parts in class plays, and that she "reconnected" with her old mentor by chance during the last three years of her life.
She claims the former head asked her to write out a will and organise a friend to sign it on Mrs Renny's behalf in September 2019 over fears it would be sold to developers if left to her blood family.
Ms Voysey claims Mrs Renny knew she "loved" the old schoolhouse as much as she did and decided to leave her everything.
Mrs Renny's cousins and the children of her stepson had stood to inherit it from a 2016 will.
Now Mrs Renny's relatives are fighting Ms Voyse's bid to claim the fortune in London's High Court.
They have accused the former head girl of faking the 2019 will.
Mrs Renny died, aged 82, in January 2020, four months after the new will to leave her £4.2million estate to the former pupil was allegedly made, court documents say.
The 2016 will divide the estate between her cousins Gillian Ayre, Angela Eastwood and Susan Vickers, and the children of her stepson, Thomas and Katherine Renny.
Ms Voysey claims she bonded with her former headteacher after visiting her as a carer and then a friend in 2019.
She claims she wrote her "distant blood relatives" out of her will because she feared they would sell the old schoolhouse to developers.
She claims Mrs Renny asked her to write out the will and have it signed on her behalf because she could not do so herself due to problems with her eyesight.
In papers lodged with the court, she says: "Mrs Renny remembered exactly who I was, even though it was 25 years since I'd left her school.
"Mrs Renny told me that she'd been asking about me during the years since I had left her school.
"The whole experience that day was very touching. I worked one more shift as a carer for Mrs Renny, then visited her as a friend after that.
"After reconnecting in February 2016, I visited Mrs Renny when I could... approximately three to four times a year.
"When I visited Mrs Renny, I would make us both a cup of tea and we would talk about my time when I was at The Barn. We...
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