Probate: Failure to comply with order was intentional, says court
The boss of an unregulated probate business has been sentenced to a year in jail for contempt of court after failing to reveal the whereabouts of £432,000 of an estate’s money.
Mr Recorder Adrian Jack said Stephen Jameson was in “serious breach” of a court order from December and that, given the amount of money involved, 12 months was an appropriate sentence.
The executors of a man who died in 2021 appointed Probate Specialist Ltd (PSL) to manage the administration of his estate. Mr Jameson was and is the sole director of PSL.
PSL, which was based in Wiltshire but also had an office in London, obtained the grant of probate in January 2022. In the months after, the executor transferred £505,000 to PSL, which paid out £73,000 “for legitimate purposes”, the judge recounted.
In October 2023, Mr Jameson showed the executors a bank statement showing that PSL held £391,000 of estate funds.
The shortfall was “unexplained”, the judge went on. Since then, Mr Jameson has provided no explanation for what occurred to the sums, beyond “an assertion (not supported by independent evidence)” that it had been misappropriated by a man, Michael Smith, with whom he said he set up PSL.
Mr Recorder Jack said: “The executors do not accept that Michael Smith exists, but I do not need to determine this issue.”
In March 2025 the executors became aware that PSL was facing a strike-off application at Companies House and instructed East Midlands law firm Fishers Solicitors. Mr Jameson confirmed he still had the estate monies but did not respond to a request to transfer them to the firm’s client account.
The judge, sitting in Birmingham, noted: “The police were subsequently informed of a potential fraud. The police are apparently investigating but to date no charges have been brought.”
Last December, Mr Recorder William Evans granted a proprietary asset freezing order in respect of the £432,000 and required Mr Jameson to serve an affidavit disclosing the whereabouts of the assets within 14 days. The order had a penal notice.
He did not comply but served an affidavit in mid-February, explaining that he hoped to develop PSL into “an automated computer system business for managing probate and inheritance tax” but detailed “difficulties resulting from his various disabilities”.
Mr Jameson said he discovered the estate money was missing in August or September 2024. “He said that he suspected that Michael Smith misappropriated the funds, but he had been unable to contact him since,” the judge said.
“The affidavit gave no details of when and where any transfers had been made or to whom. It exhibited no documents whatsoever.”
Mr Recorder Jack said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Jameson was in breach of the order and had not made “any proper attempts to obtain the bank statements for the accounts and the details of any transfers of the monies”.
His failures to comply with the December order were “intentional and contumelious”.
“I note that on his own case he is a victim of Mr Smith’s fraud, so one would anticipate he would be taking steps himself to discover what has happened to the monies from the estate.”
Finding that Mr Jameson has not made “any serious effort” to purge his contempt, Mr Recorder Jack went on: “I take into account Mr Jameson’s poor health and the fact that prison is likely to be a particular hardship to him. However, given that this is a serious breach of the order of 15th December 2025 and that the sums involved are large, in my judgment a sentence of one year’s imprisonment is appropriate.”
Suspending the sentence would give him “no encouragement” to purge his contempt.
The judge also made a fresh order that Mr Jameson provide information showing what happened to the monies by 1 May.
“Whilst under the current order, he has an incentive to comply, in that he can then apply to purge his contempt, once he is released from his sentence (in probably about five months’ time), that incentive will disappear.
“If he fails to comply with this new order, the matter can be referred to me… for directions to be given for further contempt proceedings. If a finding of contempt is made, a sentence in excess of one year may well be in contemplation.”
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