Young widow 'orchestrates fraud' with fake will to pocket half-a-million pounds from dead husband's estate, court hears

A widow who "concocted" a fake will to bag half-a-million pounds from her dead husband has had her case thrown out of court.

Marsha Henderson married Newton Davies, a retired school lollipop man 50 years her senior, then attempted to forge his will in a "ridiculous" £600,000 fraud, a court has heard.

Ms Henderson was in her twenties when she tied the knot with Mr Davies, in 2004, when he was 76.

The former London bus conductor died in 2013 aged 85, and after finding out he had left her only £25,000, she took it upon herself to "orchestrate a fraud", involving an empty Doritos packet, the court was told.

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In a bizarre claim she said she had found a will hidden inside a Doritos bag in the attic of her dead husband's home in Harrow Road, Wembley .

A judge at the Mayor's and City of London Court slammed the "ridiculous" plot and declared the will invalid, with the bulk of his estate given to his only child.

Judge Nigel Gerald heard Mr Davies had a mortgage-free £500,000 home in Wembley and around £100,000 in cash.

The news he had married a much younger woman, the daughter of an old friend, came as a "shock" to his family and friends, the court heard.

Following his death, his only child from his first marriage, Paulette Davies, insisted her father signed his last true will in July 2011.

In that will, he left his daughter about £430,000, with £140,000 going to an old friend, while Ms Henderson got just £25,000.

Then in the spring of 2015 Ms Henderson produced a rival document, dated November 2011.

That will stated he left just £20,000 to his daughter, £25,000 to friends, and the rest - about £550,000 - to his young wife.

In a strange story, Ms Henderson claimed the new will was discovered inside an empty Doritos bag in the loft of her late husband's house.

However Judge Gerald dismissed her web of lies including mistakenly referring to the dead man as a woman in "her last will".

Philip Noble, for Ms Davies, asked the judge to declare the November will a fake, saying: "No explanation has ever been given as to how Mr Davies was able to gain access to the loft space to secrete the will in a packet of Doritos - or why he should have wished to do so."

Judge Gerald told the court in his ruling: "It is Ms Henderson's evidence that the November 2011 will was found in the loft of the deceased's house, in a Doritos bag on the floor of the loft, in around March or April 2015.

"She says she knows nothing about how it came to be written or executed. All she knows is that it was found in a Doritos bag in the loft of the house in the spring of 2015.

"There is no doubt, upon the evidence which I have heard, that Ms Henderson...came to court to lie.

"There is no doubt of any nature whatsoever that the November 2011 will is a simple, but rather poor quality, forgery.

"There is equally no doubt in my mind that it was forged by Ms Henderson."

The judge went on to say: "It will obviously strike anybody as being somewhat eccentric to put an important document such as a will into a Doritos bag but there are eccentric people in this world.

"So that, of itself, does not cause me to be disbelieving, although it does cause me to consider how a man in his early eighties, who according to (a friend of his who gave evidence) does not eat Doritos, would put this document into an empty Doritos bag and then put it in the loft.

"It is inherently unlikely that the deceased would go into the loft in November 2011, find an empty Doritos bag and put his will in it.

"There is eccentric and there is ridiculous - and this is ridiculous," said the judge.

Noting that the will had been written on an A4 piece of paper, the judge went on: "I cannot take judicial notice of the size of a Doritos bag, but as far as I am aware it is smaller than an A4 piece of paper.

"None of this makes too much sense. It is plain that Ms Henderson is lying," the judge went on to say.

He pointed out a handwriting expert who examined the November will concluded: "There is strong evidence that it is a forgery."

It was declared that the July 2011 will should be admitted to probate instead, adding that the handwriting expert had backed the signature on it.

Mr Noble said he would be asking for an additional order that Ms Henderson hand over £42,000 rent to Paulette Davies, to cover the time she has been occupying her father's home while the row over the wills was ongoing.