Eight years for forging actress’s will

A property consultant who forged a dying screen siren’s will to con her out of her £1m estate in a ‘despicable act of criminal conduct’ has been jailed for eight years.

Iain Macmaster, 68, convinced actress Claire Gordon to bequeath him her legacy when she was ‘not in a fit and proper state’ and faked her signature on the document.

Ms Gordon starred in a series of raunchy comedies and appeared alongside British comedy legends including Bob Monkhouse and ‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’ star Michael Crawford in West End plays during the 1960s.

She was the first actress to appear fully naked on the British stage in a version of ‘The Three Musketeers’ and was a former ‘wifelet’ of the Marquis of Bath, who ran the Longleat Safari Park.

The actress died from a brain tumour aged 74 in April 2015.

Her assets, which included a cottage near the giraffe enclosure at the safari park in Wiltshire and a property in Hurghada, a beach resort in Egypt, was valued at £905,836.

Five months before she died, Macmaster became the executor and sole beneficiary of her will – and he got a mentally ill man to witness the document.

He received 60 per cent of the estate, and Morris Benhamu, 41, who had an intimate ‘kissing and hugging’ relationship with the actress 30 years his senior, received the other 40 per cent.

They each denied conspiracy to defraud and fraud at Southwark Crown Court. Benhamu was cleared of both charges by a jury while Macmaster was convicted of fraud.

Ms Gordon had no children and had previously written a will in 2014 naming her cousins and their children as her beneficiaries, but this has never traced.

Macmaster did not tell her surviving cousins that she was ill with a brain tumour, depriving them of the chance to patch up rocky relationships and say goodbye, the court heard.

Judge Stephen Robbins told Macmaster: ‘This was a determined attempt by you to defraud Claire Gordon of her estates by forging a will when she was dying.

‘There is no other way to describe this. It was a despicable act of criminal conduct on your behalf.’

Prosecutor Mark Halsey said: ‘His intention was to deprive Clare’s relatives and intended beneficiary of the entire estate.’

The cousins finally received £45,000 each after paying the inheritance tax.

Mr Halsey said: ‘If there had been no fraud, their inheritance would have been worth £10,000 more.

‘There were a substantial number of victims to this fraud, including her cousins, her cousins children, her friends, and godchildren. It is hard to say exactly how many victims there were.’

Her cousin Nicola Anthony said: ‘Mr Mcmaster had made no effort to contact the family so we could heal broken relationships.

‘That is even more abominable than trying to defraud us.

‘If the family had know that Claire was ill in December 2014, all of her cousins would have healed their relationship and said goodbye and Clare’s family would have been actively involved in her treatment in the three months before her death.’

She added: ‘Claire was a star on and off the screen. She has left a big gap in the lives of all of us.’

Jurors heard that Ms Gordon’s mother Mimi wrote a letter to her brother David in 1996, reminding him that he had been made a beneficiary.

The will had been supervised by her solicitor Peter Levett.

‘The letter says this – ‘In case I forget to tell you, Claire has made a will with Peter Levett making her cousins beneficiaries’ said Mr Halsey.

But that will mysteriously vanished and was replaced by the one making Mcmaster the sole beneficiary.

He got Ms Gordon to sign it as she became increasingly ill, claiming it would save her money.

Macmaster said when he met the actress over 30 years ago, ‘she obviously found me attractive.’

‘We had a close non-sexual relationship,’ he insisted.

He admitted one of the witnesses to the will – referred to in court only as ‘Mr Say’ – suffered from acute paranoia and signed his name as ‘Can Say’.

Macmaster told jurors: ‘He was suffering from acute paranoia, I didn’t realise until I met Mr Say that paranoia was a significant mental illness but it doesn’t render someone incapable or disqualified from witnessing a will – far from it.’

Mr Halsey said: ‘Claire Gordon’s signature is not her genuine signature is it?’

‘It is, I saw her sign it.’ Macmaster replied.

A forensics expert analysed the letter ‘a’ in Claire Gordon’s signature and said it likely to be a forgery.

Friends and family of the actress attended court every day of the three week long trial.

Macmaster, of Fitzrovia Court, Carburton Street, Westminster, was convicted by the jury of fraud by false representation but cleared of conspiracy to defraud.

Benhamu, of Watford Way, Hendon, was cleared of conspiracy to defraud and fraud by false representation.

Ms Gordon appeared in cult films including the 1958 farce I Only Arsked! and 1970 caper ‘The Dirtiest Girl I Ever Met’ after she was spotted by a photographer and signed to an acting contract aged 16.

She made her stage debut with the ‘The Darling Buds of May’ and was married to satirist and playboy Willie Donaldson also known as ‘Henry Root.’

They divorced in 1978 and he died in 2008.

ends