Neighbour claims jailed head ‘faked’ car accident
WRITHING in apparent agony, head teacher Michelle Hollingsworth – responsible for one of the biggest school swindles in recent history – pleads for help.
Within minutes of this picture being taken in the grounds of her palatial country estate, Hollingsworth was telling police officers and paramedics at the scene that she had deliberately been mown down.
Her story was, says the elderly driver involved, yet another scam from a cruel fraudster jailed for her part in rinsing £512,000 from Smethwick’s Annie Lennard Primary School while at the helm.
The mother of two who, neighbours told us, adored the “lady of the manor” role, faces five-and-a-half years in jail.
Her husband, property developer Joe, received one year behind bars for his part in the con.
School secretary Deborah Jones was sentenced to four years and five months.
Hollingsworth has plunged to disgrace from a very lofty place, but it is not the first time that the well-heeled 55-year-old has been before the courts.
Last year, our sister paper the Sunday Mercury revealed how she had lost a rare, and very costly, slander case after accusing a neighbour on Hatherton Estate – a gated, green oasis in South Staffordshire – of domestic violence.
Back then, the Mercury confronted Hollingsworth and was privy to a bizarre interview.
She pretended to be the cleaner and simply repeated over and again: “But who are you?”
Our reporter would dutifully repeat his name, occupation and the newspaper he represented, only to continually receive the response: “Yes, but who are you?”
One resident told our reporter: “Neighbour from hell? Is there a word I can use that’s beyond that?”
Those at Hollingsworth’s fraud trial now know how she deprived schoolchildren of vital equipment to fund her insatiable appetite for antiquities.
It has not come as a surprise to neighbour George Homer, the 77-year-old millionaire motorist involved in the bizarre accident allegation.
“I was gobsmacked,” he said. “I was stationary when she stood in front of the car, looked right and left, then just threw herself to the floor.
“She was groaning ‘My arm is broken’. I just sat in the car wondering what was happening.
“Her husband was trying to get me to whack him, but I didn’t.
“I wasn’t stressed because I knew I hadn’t done anything. I really wasn’t stressed.”
Mr Homer, a man who rose from slum life in Birmingham’s notorious back-to-back dwellings to owner of grandiose, Grade II-listed Hatherton Hall, was never formally interviewed by police about the 2015 incident and never faced any charges.
The alleged incident, which happened on a narrow track close to the Hollingsworths’ £1 million property, came during a bitter boundary war between the couple and Mr Homer, who, from nothing, made his fortune building industrial estates and an electrical contracting business.
Michelle Hollingsworth may have treated the estate as her personal duchy, but Mr Homer is the true cloth-cap king of the exclusive postcode.
The widower’s 17th century, 50room mansion sits in 40 acres, has its own fishing lake and stables.
As well as the Merc, he drives a 1934 Bentley.
In 2015, he accused the Hollingsworths of extending the boundaries of their home onto his land and demolishing an avenue of trees in the process.
That battle rumbles on date, has cost Mr Homer
£100,000 in legal fees.
The courtroom marathon been temporarily derailed by rivals’ custodial sentences. and, close to to
has his
Speaking from his oak-panelled study, the walls lined with oil paintings, the ultimate “local lad done good” said: “They are liars, deceivers and fraudsters. I think they got off lightly.
“But
Green
“I think he’ll come back down to earth when he realises someone else decides it’s time to switch the light off or have a meal. He’ll have the shock of his life.
“He was a good, working bloke, but then threw everything away by cheating and stealing.
“She’ll still be telling how innocent she is.
“I think her attitude is going to get up people’s noses in prison. She loved to be the lady of the manor and treated the horse riders who come down here like something on the bottom of her shoes.
“What they’ve put me you don’t sleep.
“It’s been continuous, but hate them.”
I think her attitude is going to get up people’s noses in prison
George Homer
he’s in the Green (Winson prison, now HMP Birmingham).
everyone
through...
I don’t