The Court of Protection has cancelled six lasting powers of attorney because the certificate provider, though a member of the Society of Will Writers (SWW), was a convicted fraudster. A further 24 cases are set to be considered in light of the decision, in what were billed as test cases. Her Honour Judge Hilder, the senior judge of the Court of Protection, warned the SWW that if it “wishes to be taken seriously in its stated purpose” – which specifically includes vetting practitioners through “stringent entry and ongoing requirements” – it needed to address the “procedural lacuna” that allowed Robert Cornford to become a member.
Background on the convicted fraudster
Identified in the past as Robert Clive Pannell, he was found guilty in 2013 of defrauding a company and its creditors and received a five-year custodial sentence. He was barred from acting as a director for seven years, yet in 2016 gave the Insolvency Service an undertaking not to hold a directorship until 2029. After changing his name in 2016, he continued to serve as a company director in breach of that undertaking and order. The conviction became spent in November 2025.
Following his release, Mr Cornford described himself as a “self-employed will writer/estate planner”, claiming training from The Will Writing Partnership and membership of the SWW from June 2020 until January 2023. The LPAs under review were executed in late 2020 or early 2021. A county-court judge raised concerns about Mr Cornford’s dual role as will writer and certificate provider, prompting HHJ Hilder to direct the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) to investigate, which led to proceedings involving three LPA donors.
Read Also: Law firms boost digital readiness but struggle with AI integration
The role of a professional certificate provider
The parties selected Mr Cornford to serve as a “professional” certificate provider rather than relying on a personal acquaintance – one individual had met him at a market stall. Such a provider must reasonably consider himself competent to make certain judgments – such as that the donor understands the purpose of the LPA and there is no fraud or pressure on them – on account of their professional skills and expertise.
The only evidence the court had from the SWW were emails managing director Anthony Belcher sent to the OPG. He said in these that someone who had committed fraud would not be permitted to become a member but the SWW did not require applicants to disclose spent convictions or previous names.
Failure of vetting procedures
Mr Cornford terminated his SWW membership in January 2023 rather than follow recommendations arising from a consumer-complaint investigation that had alerted the Society to his conviction. HHJ Hilder remarked: “Given that the period of Mr Cornford’s membership of the Society of Will Writers was after his conviction and entirely within the period before that conviction was ‘spent’, it is perhaps trite to observe that the ‘purpose’ of the Society as avowed by Mr Belcher is clearly not being achieved.”
Read Also: PE firm buys second company in days to double staff
Mr Cornford’s own narrative is even more troubling: he claimed he was never asked about prior convictions nor provided a questionnaire when he joined as an affiliate member, and that he later “confirmed [his] conviction to Anthony Belcher in a face-to-face meeting and my membership was not cancelled”.
Legal reasoning and consequences
During the hearing, Mr Cornford argued that his conviction should not preclude him from acting as a certificate provider, stating: “The law states that I have paid ‘my debt’ and should be allowed to rebuild my life.” HHJ Hilder responded that she “observed a significant dissonance between how Mr Cornford sees himself, and what his criminal record indicates about him.”
The judge noted that Mr Cornford had been “evasive” about his offence and was “very aware at the time of the ‘advantages’ of not having to make a written application to the Society of Will Writers for the kind of membership which he first took up – there was not a point where he was directly required to answer a question about his criminal record. In my view, if the Society of Will Writers wishes to be taken seriously in its stated purpose, this procedural lacuna is an obvious matter to address.”
Read Also: NAHL clears debt on strong revenue, profit growth
She held that a conviction for fraud “is simply incompatible with acting in the role intended to provide some safeguard in respect of the serious matters involved in a certificate provider’s judgments”. The court found that Mr Cornford “wishes to escape the consequences of his conviction for fraud” and failed to disclose it to either the SWW or his clients.
Incompetence and further findings
“Mr Cornford’s suitability deficit is further compounded by his holding of directorships during a period of disqualification. His explanations of ‘mistake’, mental ill-health and stress may invite sympathy but they do not exculpate his actions.” The judge also found his evidence about his professional skills and expertise to be “underwhelming”, including referring to the wrong test of capacity for executing LPAs, making “very superficial enquiries” and keeping no contemporaneous records of his actions.
