Fake ‘Lady’ who stole £3m from charity is hauled back to court ... by her own brother
Three decades after her story hit headlines...
A SELF-STYLED aristocrat infamous for stealing £2.7million from a charity almost 30 years ago is at the centre of a High Court battle after £110,000 ‘disappeared’ from her late father’s estate.
Rosemary Cubbin, 58, who called herself Lady Rosemary Aberdour, claiming to be worth £20million and descended from a Scottish laird, was jailed for four years in 1992.
In reality she was a doctor’s daughter from Essex and earned £21,000 a year as a bookkeeper at the National Hospital Development Foundation, whose patron was Princess Diana.
The bogus Lady was finally caught after going on a three-year spree with the money she stole from the charity – which would be worth £5.8million today.
She lived a fantasy lifestyle in a £10,000-a-month penthouse overlooking the Thames in Battersea, south London, where party guests found lobsters in the bath waiting to be cooked.
The fraudster would turn up at the charity where she worked in a chauffeur-driven
Bentley, and sent the limousine to Harrods to buy steak for her labrador, Jeeves. Cubbin even hired a car and driver to take her dog from London for a walk in Scotland.
After she was caught out by a forged cheque, she fled to Brazil. But she was tracked down and returned to Britain to be jailed, serving half her four-year sentence. Cubbin is now being sued at the High Court in London, accused of misappropriating funds.
Her brother, Robert Aberdour, asked Judge Stephen Lloyd to remove her as an executor of their father Dr Kenneth Aberdour’s estate due to her failure to explain where £90,000 in cash and items from their father’s house had gone. The siblings were the only beneficiaries when their father died in 2018. Mr Aberdour’s barrister, Joshua Winfield, said Cubbin could ‘not account for a significant sum of money’.
She had power of attorney for their father before being removed in 2017.
The Public Guardian, which protects the interests of those who can no longer make decisions for themselves, investigated her conduct.
Mr Winfield added: ‘The conclusion was that she had to account to the estate for missing funds, household items and certain unsubstantiated payments.
‘There is an ongoing police investigation as well.’
The High Court heard that suspicions were raised about what was happening before the Office of the Public Guardian was called in.
Sums topping £156,000 between 2014 and 2016 had to be accounted for by Cubbin, who repaid more than £47,000 and produced receipts for some legitimate spending, leaving a shortfall of £89,000.
Along with items allegedly missing from the late Dr Aberdour’s home, the shortfall was £109,568. Mr Winfield said. However, Cubbin claimed the amount was closer to £30,000.
The siblings and their partners have now agreed to be replaced as executors of the estate by an independent solicitor. The case continues.