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Hi everyone, hope you can help with this one.
My father passed away in April this year (resident in Scotland his whole life) - he passed away without a will.
Because he passed away without a will, as his son, I have been appointed executor. Through working with the solicitor I've engaged, we have very sadly discovered that his partner (to whom he was not married, but lived with for ~12 years, on her property) had used my father's bank card on the days after his death, and logged into his online banking, to send herself roughly £13,000 in bank transfers.
This took place over the 2 weeks after he died, and is comprised of roughly 15 different transactions. The bank account is my father's own personal current account - his partner was not named. She only managed to gain access because she has his phone, and has access to his security details.
The police are now involved and are investigating this as potential fraud. The main defence we are hearing at the moment is that my father and his partner "would often transfer one another money" and would "often use eachother's bank cards". I have 12 months of my father's bank statements and I see no direct transfers from him to his partner, and certainly no transactions to the value of around £13,000 in total.
The police were very VERY reluctant to get involved - for weeks, police station after police station calling this a 'civil matter'. According to the officer dealing with this case, who IS indeed now interested (finally), whether or not this is civil or not will come down to whether they can establish the depth and level of relationship between my dad and his co-habiting partner; whether it would be reasonable to expect this sort of activity to occur.
Certainly, my solicitor, and even the bank manager who first spotted this for us, called it fraud and encouraged me to contact the police right away - but after 6-months of trying to resolve it civilly, the police are now involved.
I have some questions:
1) Does this sound criminal?
2) If so, what can I expect?
3) If the police don't find this as being criminal, and close their investigation, how can I push back? My dad would be turning in his grave if he knew she had done this.
Thanks in advance.
My father passed away in April this year (resident in Scotland his whole life) - he passed away without a will.
Because he passed away without a will, as his son, I have been appointed executor. Through working with the solicitor I've engaged, we have very sadly discovered that his partner (to whom he was not married, but lived with for ~12 years, on her property) had used my father's bank card on the days after his death, and logged into his online banking, to send herself roughly £13,000 in bank transfers.
This took place over the 2 weeks after he died, and is comprised of roughly 15 different transactions. The bank account is my father's own personal current account - his partner was not named. She only managed to gain access because she has his phone, and has access to his security details.
The police are now involved and are investigating this as potential fraud. The main defence we are hearing at the moment is that my father and his partner "would often transfer one another money" and would "often use eachother's bank cards". I have 12 months of my father's bank statements and I see no direct transfers from him to his partner, and certainly no transactions to the value of around £13,000 in total.
The police were very VERY reluctant to get involved - for weeks, police station after police station calling this a 'civil matter'. According to the officer dealing with this case, who IS indeed now interested (finally), whether or not this is civil or not will come down to whether they can establish the depth and level of relationship between my dad and his co-habiting partner; whether it would be reasonable to expect this sort of activity to occur.
Certainly, my solicitor, and even the bank manager who first spotted this for us, called it fraud and encouraged me to contact the police right away - but after 6-months of trying to resolve it civilly, the police are now involved.
I have some questions:
1) Does this sound criminal?
2) If so, what can I expect?
3) If the police don't find this as being criminal, and close their investigation, how can I push back? My dad would be turning in his grave if he knew she had done this.
Thanks in advance.
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