Riding school mistress and farmer’s son who forged will jailed

Riding school mistress and millionaire farmer’s son who forged will to get £130,000 flat after losing bitter court battle over £1.2m farm are both jailed for more than a year

  • Virginia Shirt and husband Alan Shirt were upset when Mr’s Shirt’s father cut them out of his will in 2006
  • In 2012 the couple lost a ‘bitter and expensive’ appeal battle against Mr Shirt’s brothers and sisters
  • When another family struggle loomed over ownership of a £130,000 flat in Chesterfield, the couple took matters into their own hands

A riding school mistress and a millionaire farmer’s son who resorted to fraud after losing a bitter court battle over a £1.2 million farm have been jailed.

Riding school owner Virginia Shirt and her husband Alan Shirt were devastated when Mr Shirt’s farmer father Stanley cut them out of his will in 2006, over his dislike of his son’s wife.

In 2012, the couple lost a ‘bitter and expensive’ Appeal Court fight against Mr Shirt’s brothers and sister over the £1.2m family farm, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

So in 2015, when another family struggle loomed over ownership of a £130,000 flat in Chesterfield, they took matters into their own hands.


Alan Shirt (pictured left) and Virginia Shirt (pictured right) outside the London Appeal Court

The £130,000 flat in Chesterfield, over which Alan and Virginia Shirt were jailed, having conspired to forge a will leaving it to Mrs Shirt’s niece

The couple entered into a criminal ‘conspiracy’ to forge a will, leaving the property to a member of Mrs Shirt’s family, rather then the owner’s two daughters.

But they were convicted of conspiracy to defraud at Derby Crown Court in March, after expert handwriting evidence suggested the signature on the shop-bought will form was not that of the dead man.

The following month Virginia Shirt, 55, was jailed for 18 months and Alan Shirt, 71, for 16 months. Two others who witnessed the will received suspended sentences.

The couple claimed their trial was unfair, but the Criminal Court of Appeal last week rejected their complaints and condemned them to serve out their sentences.

In the 2012 court battle, Alan Shirt said he was ‘promised’ £1.2m Syda Farm, in Holymoorside, by his late father Stanley Shirt in 1986, and told ‘the farm is yours if you want to work for it.’

The £1.2m family holding that Alan Shirt, 71, was cut out of by his father Stanley Shirt. It is thought his father cut him out of his will, after the pair fell out over, amongst other things, Stanley’s ‘antipathy’ towards Virginia, Alan’s second wife

He said he ‘worked day and night’ for 40 years to keeping the farm going, without receiving proper wages.

But his father cut him out of his will, after the pair fell out over, amongst other things, Stanley’s ‘antipathy’ towards Virginia, Alan’s second wife.

When Stanley died in August 2011, aged 84, he split all he owned, including the farm, between his daughter Lynda Mayhall and two younger sons Geoff, and Jonathan.


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Alan lost the case after Appeal Court judges ruled that any promises Stanley had made were ‘not in sufficiently clear terms’ to be binding on him.

The more recent dispute centred on a flat in Chesterfield, which had belonged to Mrs Shirt’s sister, Kate Ashmore.

When she died in 2014, the property was inherited by William Bond, her partner.

Alan Shirt’s siblings, Lynda Mayhall (pictured middle), Geoff Shirt (pictured right) and Jonathan Shirt (pictured left) outside London’s Appeal Court. The siblings won a legal battle over ownership of the £1.2m family farm against Alan Shirt and his wife

And, when he passed away too the following year, the flat looked set to pass out of Mrs Shirt’s family to Mr Bond’s daughters, rather than her niece, Jo Davidson.

In early 2015, Mrs Shirt, who ran Holymoor Riding School, sent an email to solicitors voicing her fears that ‘everything that Jo’s mum and my mum worked for will go the wrong way, yet again.’

After Mr Bond’s death, Mr and Mrs Shirt produced a will which left the flat to Ms Davidson.

But Mr Bond’s daughters from a previous relationship smelled a rat and contacted the police about the fishy will which disinherited them.

Family row over £130k flat that became fraud 

Alan Shirt, 71, and Virginia Shirt, 55, were convicted of conspiracy to defraud at Derby Crown Court in March.

The dispute was over a flat in Chesterfield owned by Virginia Shirt’s sister, Kate Ashmore, who had a daughter Jo Davidson.

After Kate died in 2014 the property was inherited by her partner William Bond, who had two daughters from a previous relationship.

When he died in 2015, the flat would have gone to his daughters rather than Virginia Shirt’s niece, and Kate Ashmore’s daughter, Jo Davidson.

In early 2015, Mrs Shirt, sent an email to solicitors voicing her fears that ‘everything that Jo’s mum and my mum worked for will go the wrong way, yet again.’

After Mr Bond’s death, Mr and Mrs Shirt produced a will which left the flat to Ms Davidson- who had no knowledge of the couple’s scheme

A handwriting expert said there was ‘very strong’ evidence that ‘both the writing on the will and the signature which it bore were written by some person or persons other than the deceased,’ although she was unable to say for sure who that might be.

Mr and Mrs Shirt denied involvement in any conspiracy, insisting the will was genuine, but a jury found them guilty.

Ms Davidson had no knowledge of the criminal plot to bequeath her the flat.

In the Criminal Appeal Court, the Shirts argued that the jury ought not to have been told that the pair who witnessed the will had already pleaded guilty to the conspiracy to defraud.

It had prejudiced the jury against them and made them more likely to be convicted, they argued.

But the trial judge had taken the right course, Sir Brian Leveson ruled.

‘The judge recognised that the introduction of this evidence would detrimentally impact upon (Mr and Mrs Shirt’s) assertion that the will was genuine,’ he said.

But there had been, ‘other significant lines of potential defence’ open to the couple, he added.

The jury ‘still had to be sure that Mr and Mrs Shirt were knowing parties to the conspiracy and that they were acting dishonestly in doing so.’

‘We, like the judge, are not persuaded that the introduction of this evidence unfairly impacted on the interest of Mr and Mrs Shirt at trial,’ he concluded.

The appeal was dismissed.

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