Lotto winner's wife forged husband's signature, jury told
A lottery millionaire's wife from South Staffordshire repeatedly forged her husband's signature to get credit cards, steal more than £170,000 from their investment fund and secure a £400,000 mortgage on their luxury home, a court heard.
A lottery millionaire's wife from South Staffordshire repeatedly forged her husband's signature to get credit cards, steal more than £170,000 from their investment fund and secure a £400,000 mortgage on their luxury home, a court heard.
Labourer Anthony Robinson scooped £2.7 million and shortly afterwards married his partner Tracy Sinclair-Robinson, the mother of his three children, in 1996. Following the lottery win, they moved out of Wolverhampton and bought their house, called Nurton Croft, in Pattingham, in 2002.
Over a period of seven years up to their split in 2008 she deceived him by putting his name on an assortment of financial documents, Stafford Crown Court was told.
Mr Nick Burn, prosecuting, said her dishonesty included the theft of a total of £171,000 from their joint Friends Provident investment fund over a four-year period.
In December 2004 Sinclair-Robinson, from Pattingham, took out a £400,000 mortgage on their home with the Cheltenham and Gloucester without his knowledge.
Sinclair-Robinson, aged 42, who lives at the couple's former home in Great Moor Road, Pattingham, denies two charges of fraud, two of obtaining services by deception and one each of obtaining by deception and theft.
Mr Burn told the jury at the start of her trial that the case involved the forging of Mr Robinson's signature on financial documents.
He said: "The basic evidence and the basic facts indicate that Mrs Sinclair-Robinson deliberately forged her husband's signature on a number of documents."
Nineteen separate withdrawals were made from a Friends Provident investment fund between 2006 and 2008, and Anthony Robinson said both his and his wife Tracy's signatures were needed on the forms.
Mr Robinson told the jury: "I don't know what the money was spent on — she never told me."
Mr Robinson told the jury he met his wife-to-be in 1986.
They have three children aged between 10 and 20. Mr Robinson moved out of the home they shared in Pattingham about 18 months ago.
The trial continues.
