How shameless fraudster used £15 ‘fake will kit’ to swindle headteacher out of £4m fortune in ‘real-life Saltburn’ plot
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IT was the big hit film of last year about a conniving, money-grabbing con artist who stole an entire family’s estate. And now a shocking story has come to light in a sleepy English village which has echoes of comedy thriller Saltburn. Leigh Voysey was sentenced to six and a half years in jail for forging the £4million will of her former head teacher.
![[Leigh Voysey claimed to be the beneficiary of Maureen Renny’s estate]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/championnews-co-uk-tel-07948286566-954754514.jpg?strip=all&w=928)
In 2021, Voysey claimed to have been made the sole beneficiary in the will of Maureen Renny, who passed away aged 82 the previous year in Much Hadham, Herts. Mum-of-one Voysey, who worked as a shelf stacker in Homebase, almost snatched lavish country pile Hill House from the rightful heirs — but in October she pleaded guilty to fraud and forgery.
![[Voysey, who masterminded the scam, was jailed for six and a half years]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2021-leigh-voysey-claimed-made-955070150.jpg?strip=all&w=710)
The plot bears similarities to Saltburn, where Oliver, played by Barry Keoghan, manages to swindle the estate from the family of his friend Felix (Jacob Elordi). When Voysey, 46, was a child, wealthy Maureen was her tutor at the fee-paying school which the former headmistress founded.
![[Maureen Renny founded Barn School where Voysey was a pupil]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/8de9283f-4379-4403-ac21-c5f4aadce8cf.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
She claims she connected with Maureen many years later when she took a job at a care agency and worked as her carer in 2016. Then, in one of the most brazen attempts at probate frauds British courts have seen in years, Voysey bought a £15 will kit and forged the necessary documents.
![[Scheming Voysey’s plan came unstuck]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/07948286566-954700810_f41ca8.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
The heartless con artist enlisted her pal, Stansted Airport security guard Amber Collingwood, and drug addict Ben Mayes, to sign as witnesses to the will. The pair later pleaded guilty to forgery. In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Maureen’s grandson Tom Renny, 32, said: “Maureen was a very generous lady and incredibly charitable to everyone she met. But by the end she was extremely vulnerable and for someone to have tried to exploit her in this way has been horrific.
![[Voysey enlisted her pal Amber Collingwood to sign as a witnesses to the will]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2021-leigh-voysey-claimed-named-954778358.jpg?strip=all&w=375)
