Hilder: Fraud conviction incompatible with being a certificate provider
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.
As Robert Clive Pannell, he was convicted in 2013 of defrauding a company and creditors and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. He was disqualified as a director for seven years but in 2016 gave an undertaking to the Insolvency Service not to be a director until 2029.
He changed his name in 2016 and has been a company director in breach of the order and undertaking. His conviction became spent in November 2025.
After his release from prison, Mr Cornford became a “self-employed will writer/estate planner”, saying he obtained training from The Will Writing Partnership and was a member of the SWW between June 2020 and January 2023. The LPAs under scrutiny were signed in late 2020 or early 2021.
A county court judge raised concerns about Mr Cornford acting as a will writer and certificate provider with HHJ Hilder, who ordered the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) to investigate, leading to the proceedings concerning three LPA donors.
They chose Mr Cornford to act as a ‘professional’ certificate provider, rather than on the basis of personal acquaintance – one met him on 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.
Mr Cornford cancelled his membership in January 2023 rather than comply with recommendations following an investigation into a consumer complaint. This had informed the SWW of his conviction.
HHJ Hilder said: “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.
“Mr Cornford’s account is yet more dispiriting: that he was neither asked about convictions nor given a form to complete when he joined the Society as an affiliate member, and that he subsequently ‘confirmed [his] conviction to Anthony Belcher in a face-to-face meeting and my membership was not cancelled’.
Mr Cornford told the court that his conviction should not mean he could not act as a certificate provider: “The law states that I have paid ‘my debt’ and should be allowed to rebuild my life.”
HHJ Hilder said she “observed a significant dissonance between how Mr Cornford sees himself, and what his criminal record indicates about him”.
He had been “evasive” about his conviction 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.”
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”.
Mr Cornford “wishes to escape the consequences of his conviction for fraud” and did not volunteer it to either the SWW or his clients.
“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.
“In my judgment, Robert Cornford could not reasonably have considered himself competent to make the judgments required of a certificate provider.”
This was enough to dispose of the application but, to aid the other 24 cases, HHJ Hilder went on to find that Mr Cornford did not satisfy himself of the matters required of a certificate provider – he asked one of them if they were under pressure “while his daughters were making a cup of tea close by” – and did not comply with the legal requirements for signing the LPAs.
We have approached the SWW for comment.
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