Former head girl accused of faking headmistress’s will to inherit £4.2m estate

Published date31 March 2022
Publication titleExpress, The/The Express on Sunday: Web Edition Articles (London, England)
Ms Voysey claims that Ms Renny, her former mentor, wanted to save her property and eight acres of land from being sold to developers, who had allegedly offered her in the region of £10m

She adds that Ms Renny dictated the new will to her, which she then wrote out herself, in September 2019. Ms Renny struggled with writing due to her poor eyesight.

The only witnesses to the dictation were two friends of Ms Voysey, one of which signed on behalf of Ms Renny.

However, Ms Renny’s family, cut out of the will, allege that the new dictated will was faked - and add that even if Ms Voysey’s version of events is accurate, the former headteacher had suffered a stroke two months earlier and was recorded in a carer’s notes as “talking gibberish”.

Her family claim that this rendered her not in sound mind to create a new will - especially as Ms Renny was described as being confused about money, delusional and “largely living in the past”.

Ms Voysey started attending The Barn School as an eight-year-old in 1987, and said Ms Renny had “always favoured her”, including giving her the best parts in school plays, and added that the pair “reconnected” by chance during the last three years of her life when the former head girl was hired as her carer.

Ms Renny’s sprawling home at Hill House was the site of The Barn School until 1998, and Ms Voysey says she was worried that the beloved former school building would be sold to developers if left in the hands of blood relatives.

The former will, written in 2016, would have reportedly divided her estate between her cousins Gillian Ayre, Angela Eastwood and Susan Vickers, and the children of her stepson, Thomas and Katherine Renny.

In papers lodged with the court, Ms Voysey said: “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.”

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She added that Ms Renny said of her old school: “I hope it never gets built on.”

In court, she said: “I think it...

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