Executor jailed for fraud after inheritance vanishes

A trusted neighbour who spent a £240,000 inheritance to which he was not entitled has been jailed for three and a half years.

David Loveday was made executor of Anita Border’s estate when she died in August 2015, the Evening Standard reports. The pensioner had instructed him to give £110,000 each to her long-standing friends Parminder Gibbs and Emma Cullen, Loveday’s partner.

While Ms Cullen received her share, Mrs Gibbs was left empty-handed and had to mount a High Court bid in an attempt to secure her money.

Loveday, however, had already spent the cash on an Audi, holidays and settling his debts.

In 2017 he was jailed for six months after he refused to produce paperwork showing where the money had gone.

He has now been sent back to prison for three years and seven months after admitting a charge of fraud.

“It was an abuse of a position of trust over a prolonged and sustained period of time,” said Judge Brendan Finucane QC, adding that Loveday had “shown absolutely no remorse”.

The court was told that Loveday had repeatedly lied to Mrs Gibbs when she tried to get her share of the inheritance. Her health had suffered during the four-year battle and she and her husband had been forced to re-mortgage their home to pay for £60,000 in High Court legal fees.