Three people who tried to net £1.8 million in a will fraud were being sentenced on Friday.

David and Annette Spillman and her mother Annette Russill set up a sting operation to try to swindle the estate of kindhearted spinster Annie Kay.

But they today faced a spell behind bars after a jury convicted David Spillman, of St Andrew's Road, Shoebury, of conspiracy to defraud.

Russill, 65, of Leicester Avenue, Rochford, who dressed up as Annie Kay to try to fool a will maker and helped draft a new will which would split the cash between the three of them, earlier admitted her part in the plot.

Annette Spillman, 47, of Guildford Road, Southend, also pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

The court had heard how Russill had disguised herself by donning a wig and clothes to pretend she was 87-year-old Miss Kay, who later died in March 1997.

The money will now go to its intended recipients - the Southend-on-Sea Home for the Blind and Scope, which helps people with cerebral palsy.

Gulity - David Spillman

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.