(Perth Now) - A sheep farmer who used her dead father as a fake witness in an attempt to inherit a £1million estate was jailed yesterday.
Janice Johnson, 66, fabricated papers suggesting she was entitled to the late John Harper’s farm.
She even presented a letter sent to her in shaky handwriting, apparently from Mr Harper, saying he was leaving her the farm.
Police later discovered he did not have a hand tremor.
On another occasion, a will was pinned to a sheep pen gate at Scrithwaite Farm, near Millom in Cumbria, leaving everything to Johnson and signed by two men – Johnson’s father Martin Gott and a friend of Mr Harper’s called Norman Metcalfe. Both men were dead, the court heard.
Johnson had used Mr Harper’s fields at Scrithwaite to graze her sheep for 19 years and might have convinced herself she was entitled to the estate after his death in 2016, Preston Crown Court was told.
Prosecutors said she hatched a plan to obtain the property after learning Mr Harper had not left a will and the land, buildings and money were “going to go to people who had no interest in the farm”.
Mr Harper died with no next of kin but an heir research company found 55 potential beneficiaries, three of whom visited the property.
Days later an anonymous note was sent to a neighbour stating that Mr Harper wanted to leave farm equipment and money to some neighbours and the farm to a “J Johnson”.
When the “shaky handwriting” document turned up, Johnson took the letter to her solicitors but was told it was invalid as a will because it was unsigned and had not been witnessed. It was then that a new “will” was found, pinned to the sheep pen gate.
Johnson took it to her solicitors but was again told it was invalid as it had no date on it. She is said to have tried to “authenticate” it with a date.
The prosecution claimed she or someone else found her father’s diaries from 1999 and “squeezed” in a sentence between two lines supposedly from her father writing that he had been to witness a will.
She forged another letter from her father telling her she had been mentioned in Mr Harper’s will. But the court heard Mr Harper was well-known as a curmudgeon who avoided social contact.
Even Johnson admitted he would hide in the barn and close the door when she came to tend to her sheep.
Prosecutors said she had deliberately selected dead men as witnesses to her faked documents so they could not be questioned.
She was caught after leaving a trail of errors in her attempt to win the farm for herself and keep her business running, the court heard.
Johnson, of nearby Fenwick Farm in Thwaite, was found guilty of five counts of fraud by false representation after a week-long trial.
Yesterday she was sentenced to four years imprisonment to run concurrently on each fraud charge.
Judge Graham Knowles told her she had launched her grab of the farm straight after she met beneficiaries Ellen Steel, her daughter Claire Clark and Ms Clark’s son Gregory who visited the farm after being contacted by heir hunters.
“You realised John Harper had left no will so anything he owned was going to people that had no interest in the farm,” he told her.
“You decided swiftly you did not want that to happen and you were going to have everything he left. The letters were very incompetently done, full of illogicalities and wild improbabilities...
“You are well regarded as a hard worker, a decent woman and you are respected in the community but in this matter you could not own up to what you did. It is baffling.”
Johnson told the court she believed specific documents were genuine and denied she had forged any letters.
By Claire Duffin | Daily Mail
August 26, 2023
