Judge accused of changing will for her children’s gain

A district court judge has gone on trial accused of trying to deceive an elderly man into leaving half his estate to her children.

Heather Perrin, aged 60, ran a solicitors firm before being appointed to the bench and was asked by her long-term friend and client, Thomas Davis, to help draw up a will for him.

Ms Perrin is alleged to have altered the will without his knowledge to the benefit of her son and daughter.

The alleged deception came to light when a new firm of solicitors took over Ms Perrin’s practice when she was made a judge.

They thought it strange that so much of Mr Davis’s will, which was worth approximately €1m, was left to the Perrin children.

When confronted, Ms Perrin initially claimed it was a mistake by her secretary, but then told gardaí that she created the will in line with her client’s wishes.

Ms Perrin, of Lambay Court, Malahide, has pleaded not guilty to deceptively inducing Mr Davis to bequeath half of his estate to Sybil and Adam Perrin at an address on Fairview Strand on Jan 22, 2009.

Prosecuting counsel Dominic McGinn SC told the jury that they will hear from Mr Davis, who is in his early 80s and was a long-standing client of the accused’s law firm.

Mr McGinn said that in early 2009 Mr Davis decided to draft a will. He instructed Ms Perrin that in the event of the death of himself and his wife, he wanted to leave €2,000 each to Ms Perrin’s children, as well as sums of money to various churches.

Mr McGinn said the rest of the estate was to be divided between Mr Davis’s nieces. This included a house in Finglas, €750,000 from the sale of a house in Gorey, and a large sum of money on deposit with EBS.

Counsel said there would be evidence that Mr Davis signed the will in Ms Perrin’s office but did not read it over because the accused was in a rush and he trusted her. Several months later he received a copy of the will which complied with his instructions, but was unsigned and undated.

Mr McGinn said after the accused was appointed as a judge in Feb 2009, the firm that took over her practice sent several letters to Mr Davis querying legal matters. He said Mr Davis replied with several, increasingly irate letters asking the firm not to contact him again and demanding the return of his legal documents and jewellery, which were stored in the firm’s safe.

Mr McGinn said these letters were drafted with the help of Ms Perrin.

The trial continues on Monday before Judge Mary Ellen Ring and a jury of eight men and four women.

The prosecution’s first witness was a partner with the firm, O’Hanrahan Quaney, which took over Ms Perrin’s practice. Juliana Quaney gave evidence of the correspondence between the firm and Mr Davis in which Mr Davis said Ms Perrin had served them well over the years.

The letters from Mr Davis demanded the return of his will and other legal documents and said someone would be coming to collect them. His letters demanded no further contact from the firm and threatened it would be reported to the Law Society for opening letters addressed to him.

Ms Quaney said a man named Tom Waller called to the firm several times attempting to pick up the family’s possessions. She said she refused to hand them over to him and was “very concerned” as Mr Waller said he did not know Mr Davis.

The State says it will present evidence that Ms Perrin was instructing Mr Waller to pick up the items. Ms Quaney said that after Mr Waller’s last attempt to collect the Davis documents, she opened the safe and looked at the will. She said she was surprised to find that half of the residual estate was left to the Perrin children and wrote to Mr Davis questioning this.

Mr Davis then came into the firm and was shown the will. He said it did not match his instructions and showed the copy of the will he received, which left his residual estate to his nieces and only €2,000 each to the Perrin children.

That evening he drafted a new will matching hisoriginal wishes and continued to grant €2,000 each to Sybil and Adam Perrin.

Mr McGinn said that when contacted by the Davis family, Ms Perrin said it must have been a mistake by her secretary.

When quizzed by the gardaí she said she drafted the will according to Mr Davis’s wishes. She said he wished his estate to be split between her children and his nieces.