Are wills too easy to fake? Thomas Dumont and Wendy Mathers investigate
It is notoriously difficult to prove in court that a will has been forged. However, Peter Leaver QC, sitting as a judge of the Chancery Division, ruled the will a forgery in Supple v Pender [2007] All ER (D) 195 (Feb). Until then, the writers believe that the Chancery Division may not have pronounced a will to be forged—where the claim was defended—for over 30 years.
Supple caught the imagination of the national press, and a heady mixture of greed and strong emotion fanned the flames. The case was set in the ever-decreasing Kent countryside where Len Supple’s 60-acre farm was sandwiched between Maidstone and the M20. During a previous property boom, representatives of a national building company landed on the farm in a helicopter to make Len a large offer. He sent them packing.
Len was the father of two children. Stephen, his son by his wife, Patricia (from whom he was divorced in the 1950s) was 58
