Police hunt for four people who failed to appear in court
Efforts to locate these people are ongoing, however, officers also want to hear from anyone who has seen or spoken to these individuals recently or anyone who knows where they may be.
The following are wanted:
Graeme Donnelly, 38, is wanted for failing to appear at court. He has links to west Cumbria and Carlisle.
Robert Bowman, 25, is wanted for failing to appear at court. He has links to Millom.
Deborah Acton,45, is wanted for failing to appear at court. She has links to Copeland area.
Darren Merritt, 37, is wanted for failing to appear at court. He has links to Whitehaven.
Anyone with any information regarding the whereabouts of these individuals is asked to contact police.
A police spokesperson said: 'We are asking for the public's help in locating these people who are wanted.
'Information from the public is, and will continue to be, important in assisting our investigations to ensure we secure justice for victims.
'We know some people in Cumbria know where these people are. If you have any information which could assist us, please contact police or contact Crimestoppers anonymously.'
You can report online at https://orlo.uk/qpCGN or call 101.
Alternatively, if you'd prefer not to give your personal detail, you can contact Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111 or via https://orlo.uk/e5c8B
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
How fake-will fraudsters stole millions from the dead
In late 2023, sisters Lisa and Nicole were told they had inherited a substantial sum from their late Aunt Christine. But while they were absorbing this life-changing news, the windfall was just as quickly snatched away. A man unknown to Christine's family, friends or neighbours, appeared - apparently from nowhere - and produced a will, naming him sole heir to her entire estate. Doubts about the man's claim grew as troubling details emerged. However, the police and probate service said they would not investigate. Lisa and Nicole's is one of several similar cases investigated by BBC News in the south of England. We found mounting evidence that a criminal gang has been carrying out systematic will fraud by exploiting weaknesses in the probate system, stealing millions of pounds from the estates of dead people, and committing serious tax fraud. Lisa and Nicole were upset to hear about the death of their aunt, Christine Harverson, whom they had not seen since their early childhood. They were also shocked to be told that they stood to inherit her entire estate, including a house in Wimbledon, south London, which could be worth nearly £1m. She had not left a will, and they were her closest living relatives. The sisters were alerted to their inheritance by an "heir-finder" company, Anglia Research Services. Heir-finders use an official government register that lists estates where no will has been made. They research the dead person's family in order to identify, locate and contact the rightful heirs. In return for a portion of the inheritance, these companies act on the heirs' behalf and apply for what's known as a grant of probate. This gives them the legal right to deal with a deceased person's estate – in other words, their property, money and possessions. However, on this occasion, the application for probate on behalf of Lisa and Nicole was stopped in its tracks. A Hungarian man by the name of Tamas Szvercsok contacted the probate service, and produced a will describing him as Christine's "dear friend". It named him the beneficiary of her entire estate, as well as sole executor - the person legally responsible for carrying out the instructions in the will. The possibility that Mr Szvercsok was genuine, initially was not dismissed out of hand. "It happens - sometimes cases slip through the net and a will is unearthed," says Matt Boardman, a former police officer who works for Anglia Research. However, there were clear signs something was amiss: Christine's neighbour and friend, Sue, said she had never mentioned a Hungarian friend at any point in the years they had known each other The will was dated 2016 - Christine was housebound and disabled by this time, and receiving practically no visitors The terms of the will meant that Christine would have disinherited her husband and carer Dennis, who in 2016 was still alive (he died in 2020) Moreover, because Dennis was the joint owner of their house, Christine could not have legally bequeathed the house without his consent After Dennis's death, Christine entered a care home, but there was no record of Mr Szvercsok ever visiting her Other even more troubling details stood out. Christine's home address was misspelled on the will, and even though it was dated 2016, the address given for Mr Szvercsok was a block of flats that had not been built until 2021. Matt Boardman contacted Mr Szvercsok, who replied by email: "I never heard of any family. I'm the sole executor of her will." Despite presenting what they thought was a strong case to police and the probate service, Lisa and Nicole were told they would have to bring a civil action if they wanted to prove that the will was a fake. That would cost tens of thousands of pounds which they do not have. Lisa now says she sometimes wishes she had never been told about the will in the first place: "All it's done is bring misery really, and heartache. It's just a whole nightmare." Stealing a dead person's property and financial assets appears to be extremely easy under UK law, if no will can be located. The official government register of unclaimed estates (in England and Wales?) is called Bona Vacantia (Latin for "vacant goods"), and is freely accessible online. It currently contains about 6,000 names and is updated daily. Legitimate heir-hunting companies use Bona Vacantia to research potential clients, but it also appears to have become a valuable resource for criminals. To claim an estate where there is no known heir, a fraudster simply has to find a promising name on Bona Vacantia, produce a will quickly enough, and be awarded grant of probate. Since 2017 it's been possible to apply for grant of probate online, but critics of the system say it is failing to detect suspicious applicants, and it also appears to increase the opportunity for tax fraud. When someone dies, their estate has to be assessed for inheritance tax. This is not payable on estates worth £325,000 or less, but any amount over that threshold – with some exceptions - is taxed at 40%. It's the responsibility of the person awarded grant of probate to make sure inheritance tax has been paid. Applicants for grant of probate must complete a form to say this has been done, but under the current arrangements, they need do no more than declare on the online form that no tax is due. It is a system that relies largely on trust, but gives ample opportunity for that trust to be roundly abused. During our investigations we have come across cases where estates have been valued at just under the inheritance tax threshold, even though they include property worth far more. One of these was the estate of Charles Haxton. At the time of his death in 2021, Charles Haxton was living alone in a terraced house in Tooting, south London. He was reclusive and only occasionally spoke to neighbours, although one of them, Roye Chapman, was there for him near the end when he suffered a bad fall outside. "I rang the police and then got him up and got him into the ambulance," he says. "His head was all cut open, and then two weeks later, he died." No will was initially found for Mr Haxton, and his name and address appeared on Bona Vacantia. This prompted Anglia Research to look for possible heirs, and they told several of his cousins that they could be in line to inherit Mr Haxton's estate. Then, as with Lisa and Nicole, the cousins were told that a will had appeared after all, leaving everything to one man - also Hungarian - called Roland Silye. The family initially accepted his claim, to have been an old friend of Mr Haxton, but one relation, Barry, obtained a copy of the will and was struck by how odd it looked. It left Mr Silye two properties - not only Mr Haxton's home in London, but also a house in Hertfordshire. Together, the two properties would have been worth about £2m. However, Mr Silye listed the value of the estate as £320,500 – just £4,500 short of the amount at which inheritance tax kicked in. What was even stranger was that Mr Haxton had never owned, and had no connection to, any house in Hertfordshire. We visited this property. It was large and dilapidated, and neighbours told us it had been unoccupied for a long time. The puzzle of the extra house also caught the attention of Neil Fraser, a partner in another heir-hunting company. He thinks that Mr Silye may have bundled the Hertfordshire property into a will in an attempt to fake ownership. "He must have gone past that house and thought, 'I'll just take that derelict house. How can I get that house? Well, I can put it inside a will!" Crucially, the will was accepted by the probate service, who did not check or raise any questions about the Hertfordshire house. We were unable to trace Roland Silye in our investigation, and his motivation remains a mystery. The will would not give him possession of the Hertfordshire house - the property registry and the electoral roll name the owner as a woman who would be in her 70s. However, Mr Fraser speculates that the will could be used in future as leverage to take ownership when the real owner dies. Despite reporting his suspicions to the police and the probate service, he says action was not taken. Mr Silye cleared probate not only for Mr Haxton's estate, but also that of George Woon, an elderly man from Southall, west London. Mr Woon also died in 2021, and shortly afterwards, his name appeared on Bona Vacantia. Mr Silye came forward with a will which named him as sole heir. Mr Woon's house was later sold at auction for £360,000. We asked an expert in financial fraud, Graham Barrow, to check whether there could be any connection between Roland Silye and Tamas Szvercsok. Both have names of Hungarian origin, and, according to Companies House, both appear to be directors in a complex and interlinked web of companies. Mr Barrow established that the address Mr Szvercsok gave in Mrs Harverson's will was also used by Mr Silye for some of his companies. What these companies do is unclear, although some have been struck off for fraudulent addresses, and others have been warned for failing to provide accounts. The pattern - multiple businesses, related addresses, similar names - is one which often indicates a criminal network, says Mr Barrow. He adds that owning multiple companies can allow criminals to disperse funds across different accounts and locations, and makes life more difficult for law enforcement. Another Hungarian name featuring in this web of companies is Bela Kovacs, who, according to a will dated 2021, was heir to the entire estate of Michael Judd, from Pinner, west London. According to his neighbours, Mr Judd was a multi-talented individual with a distinguished record in the security services. However, in his final years he had become something of a hoarder, seldom leaving his house. One neighbour, Chris, told us he thought the will had sounded strange and not only because Mr Judd had never mentioned Bela Kovacs. A few months before his death in 2024, Mr Judd told Chris he had made a will long ago, but the people named on it were all now dead. In any case, he added, he did not know where it was. "I suppose I better try and dig it out some time," Chris remembers him saying. He feels it's inconceivable that Mr Judd would have troubled himself with these decisions if he had made a will three years previously. We tracked Mr Kovacs down to a luxury estate in the Watford area but he refused to talk to us. Other factors seem to connect these cases. The wills made out for Charles Haxton, George Woon and the others we have seen, appear to have been written by the same person, according to handwriting expert Christina Strang. "The numbers two, four and seven are all written in the same way on several addresses," she says. She also sees other similarities, such as the spacing of the letters in different signatures, and the positioning of the signatures on the line. "It seems to be one person actually signing, forging all of these." Ms Strang also thinks this same person may have also forged signatures for the witnesses named on the wills, none of whom, we found, were apparently known to the deceased, and some of whom might have been completely fictitious. There are disturbing similarities in the way that properties were treated during and after the probate process: Shortly after Mr Szvercsok made his initial claim on Mrs Harverson's estate, her nieces discovered her Wimbledon house had been ransacked A workman employed to empty Mr Judd's house told us he had been instructed to empty it quickly, even though this meant having to destroy what appeared to be valuable heirlooms After Mr Haxton's house was cleared, the windows and doors were blacked out, and the locks strengthened; a year later, it emerged that it was being used as a cannabis farm (a fact that only emerged when a rival gang tried to force entry and neighbours alerted the police) As a result of our investigation, bank accounts for dozens of companies connected to the suspected fraudsters, have been suspended. In addition, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has told us it now wants to question Roland Silye about inheritance tax which he might owe on the estate of Charles Haxton. Bela Kovacs was granted probate over the estate of Michael Judd, which was valued at £310,000 - just below the inheritance tax threshold. However, HMRC's interest was also piqued by this case, and it has now suspended a planned sale of Mr Judd's bungalow in Pinner. Meanwhile, the dispute over Christine Harverson's estate means the probate process has been frozen, and it looks unlikely to be resolved soon. Tamas Szvercsok cannot take possession of her Wimbledon house, but Lisa and Nicole lack the funds to go to the civil court and prove his will is fake. We wrote to Mr Szvercsok and Mr Silye at the addresses supplied with their probate applications, offering them a right of reply, but we did not hear back. When we shared our findings with the Ministry of Justice, which is ultimately responsible for the probate system, it told us that it was "working with law enforcement to ensure criminals feel the full force of the law". However, a different picture emerges from others who know the system. "Because probate isn't high profile – it's not sort of, for want of a better word, politically sexy, it doesn't stay in the headlines," says former MP Sir Bob Neill, who until the 2024 general election was the chair of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee. In 2023, the select committee launched an inquiry into the probate system, but it was cut short by the election. Sir Bob believes an over-eagerness to cut costs by digitising the probate system, has produced weaknesses which fraudsters are now exploiting. "When you had regional offices you had human awareness, contact and scrutiny that was better suited to pick up cases where things have gone wrong," he says. "A purely sort of automated system isn't really good at doing that." He says the system introduced in 2017 was a cheap and quick fix. It lacks the sophistication, he says, of programs used by insurance companies to deal with fraud, which can detect patterns of suspicious behaviour. His concerns are echoed by Anglia Research's investigator, Matt Boardman, who says that previously, executors of wills would have had to attend their local probate registry to swear an oath, which "would allow the registrar to evaluate every single case on its own merit". He says the system's move online "completely eliminated" the chance to question the executor's demeanour or behaviour. "Goodness knows just how many of these have already gone through and been processed by the probate registry," he says, "and how rich we're making these people."
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Palestine Action terror ban comes into force after late-night legal action fails
A ban against Palestine Action has come into force, designating it as a terror group after a late-night legal bid to delay it failed. It makes membership of, or support for, the direct action group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison. The move to ban the organisation was announced after two Voyager aircraft were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on June 20, an incident claimed by Palestine Action, which police said caused around £7 million worth of damage. In response to the ban, a group of around 20 people are set to gather and sit in front of the Gandhi statue in London's Parliament Square on Saturday afternoon, according to campaign group Defend Our Juries. They will hold signs saying: 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.' The newly proscribed group lost a late-night Court of Appeal challenge on Friday to temporarily stop it being banned, less than two hours before the move came into force at midnight. Earlier that day Huda Ammori, the group's co-founder, unsuccessfully asked the High Court to temporarily block the Government from designating the group as a terrorist organisation, before a potential legal challenge against the decision to proscribe it under the Terrorism Act 2000. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to proscribe Palestine Action on June 23, stating that the vandalism of the two planes was 'disgraceful' and that the group had a 'long history of unacceptable criminal damage'. MPs in the Commons voted 385 to 26, majority 359, in favour of proscribing the group on Wednesday, before the House of Lords backed the move without a vote on Thursday. Four people – Amy Gardiner-Gibson, 29, Jony Cink, 24, Daniel Jeronymides-Norie, 36, and Lewis Chiaramello, 22 – have all been charged in connection with the incident. They appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday after being charged with conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom, and conspiracy to commit criminal damage, under the Criminal Law Act 1977. Lawyers for Ms Ammori took her case to the Court of Appeal on Friday evening, and in a decision given at around 10.30pm, refused to grant the temporary block. Raza Husain KC, for Ms Ammori, made a bid to have the case certified as a 'point of general public importance' to allow a Supreme Court bid, but the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said they would not get to the Supreme Court before midnight. The judge added that any application should be made before 4pm on Monday and refused a bid to pause the ban coming into effect pending any Supreme Court bid. In an 11-page written judgment, Baroness Carr, Lord Justice Lewis and Lord Justice Edis said: 'The role of the court is simply to interpret and apply the law. 'The merits of the underlying decision to proscribe a particular group is not a matter for the court…Similarly, it is not a matter for this court to express any views on whether or not the allegations or claims made by Palestine Action are right or wrong.' They also said: 'People may only be prosecuted and punished for acts they engaged in after the proscription came into force.' In his decision refusing the temporary block, High Court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said: 'I have concluded that the harm which would ensue if interim relief is refused but the claim later succeeds is insufficient to outweigh the strong public interest in maintaining the order in force.' Blinne Ni Ghralaigh KC, for Ms Ammori, told the Court of Appeal that the judge wrongly decided the balance between the interests of her client and the Home Office when deciding whether to make the temporary block. She said: 'The balance of convenience on the evidence before him, in our respectful submission, fell in favour of the claimant having regard to all of the evidence, including the chilling effect on free speech, the fact that people would be criminalised and criminalised as terrorists for engaging in protest that was not violent, for the simple fact that they were associated with Palestine Action.' She also told the Court of Appeal that Mr Justice Chamberlain 'failed properly to consider' that banning the group 'would cause irreparable harm'. Ms Ni Ghralaigh said: 'There was significant evidence before him to demonstrate the chilling effect of the order because it was insufficiently clear.' She continued that the ban would mean 'a vast number of individuals who wished to continue protesting would fall foul of the proscription regime due to its lack of clarity'. Ben Watson KC, for the Home Office, told the Court of Appeal that Mr Justice Chamberlain gave a 'detailed and careful judgment' and that the judge was 'alive' to the possible impacts of the ban, including the potential 'chilling effect' on free speech.
New York Times
5 hours ago
- New York Times
Pro-Palestinian Activists Lose Appeal Against U.K. Government Ban
A pro-Palestinian protest group has been banned as a terrorist organization by the British government, putting it on the same legal footing as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the first use of far-reaching security laws in response to property damage. The group, Palestine Action, which has targeted Israel-linked defense companies and vandalized military planes at Britain's largest Royal Air Force base, lost a legal bid to temporarily delay the law, and it is set to go into effect at midnight local time. Palestine Action's full legal challenge against the British government is still pending, with the next hearing scheduled for July 21. The ban makes it illegal to be a member of Palestine Action, or to support it in a number of other ways, including by raising money for the group, 'glorifying' its activities, arranging meetings, sharing the group's social media material or wearing its merchandise. It is the first time the British government has used part of its 25-year-old definition of terrorism that covers 'serious damage to property' to ban a group — rather than prohibiting them because of the use or threat of violence — prompting criticism from a broad range of human rights groups and international bodies. In a statement issued on Tuesday, a group of United Nations special rapporteurs said they had contacted the British government to voice concerns that the ban would 'criminalize legitimate activities' and that 'acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
