Family of stabbed burglar buy OAP’s £1.7m home for £325k
THE family of stabbed burglar Henry Vincent are living on a sprawling £1.7million farm bought for a fraction of its value, it emerged yesterday.
They are using a Grade II listed detached farmhouse in 40 acres of land as the base for their family, several of whom have been convicted of conning the elderly.
Residents in the village of Hollingbourne, Kent, are concerned about the ‘vulnerable’ elderly former owner and the circumstances in which he came to sell the farm.
They said Vincent befriended privately-educated Dudley Wright, 72, seven years ago after being brought in to help repair the mansion.
Just weeks ago the farmer sold the entire property for what appeared to be a cutprice £325,000 to Vincent’s mother Rosemary, 59, after having not been seen by neighbours for months.
Vincent was killed as he attempted to rob Richard Osborn- Brooks, 72, at his home in Hither Green, South-East London, on April 4. He ended up being stabbed with his own screwdriver during a scuffle with the former office manager.
After his death it was revealed that he and leading members of his family are notorious cowboy builders who specialise in ripping off the elderly. As relatives prepare to bury him today, it can be revealed that: ÷ Mr Wright’s estate was split up and sold in five plots priced at £65,000 each on April 12, despite property experts valuing it at up to £1.7million; ÷ Uniformed police officers attended the house yesterday to check on the welfare of Mr Wright, who has lived in the house for more than 50 years; ÷ Vincent’s alleged accomplice Billy Jeeves, 28, was arrested in the grounds in a Metropolitan Police raid two weeks ago; ÷ An elderly farmhand sacked and evicted by the Vincents despite working for the Wright family for five decades said he was ‘gutted’ at his dismissal; ÷ Parish council leader Mike Bedwell said he was ‘ worried’ and there are ‘ a lot of questions’ about the wellbeing of the retired farmer; ÷ The Met confirmed officers will guard Mr Osborn-Brooks’ home today, but there are no plans for mourners attending Vincent’s funeral to go near.
Mr Wright’s father Leonard bought 1,700 acres of land around the Kent village in the early 1960s from the proceeds of his family’s garage business.
It grew into a successful arable and livestock farm and was handed down to his son Dudley after his death in 1975.
Residents said Mr Wright, who suffered a head injury in a childhood car crash, struggled to cope and sold off a large portion of land in the 1980s for more than £1million.
In 2011 he was befriended by Vincent, who was brought in by a gardener to help repair the main house.
Over the next seven years, Vincent
‘He was struggling to look after himself’
and his parents Henry senior and Rosemary, both 59, were seen increasingly often, moving into a trailer on the grounds.
A short while later, the Vincents sacked and evicted farmhand Walter Bratton, 76, and sold off Mr Wright’s remaining cattle.
Then two years ago, Mr Wright wrote to his ex-wife Winifred, 72, to say their daughter Davina, 41, would no longer benefit from his will.
The Vincent family also brought in dog kennels for breeding, with several large German shepherds let loose to roam the estate. Signs were put up saying that visitors are not welcome.
Last month, Mrs Vincent took control of the five- bedroom house, known as Snagbrook, and land
under five separate titles each valued at £ 65,000. Local estate agents said the sprawling property would ‘easily’ have fetched between £1.5million and £2million on the open market.
Mrs Wright, 72, who the farmer married in 1972 before they split four years later, was so concerned about his health that she contacted police.
‘They told me that as we were divorced they could not tell me anything about him so as not to interfere in his privacy,’ she said.
‘But two years ago I received a letter from Dudley saying that our daughter was being disinherited from his estate. That was a big shock.’
Hollingbourne residents were also worried and raised his wellbeing at a meeting of the parish council.
Parish council chairman Mike Bedwell said: ‘He used to be seen regularly out and about doing his shopping in the local convenience store and the owner was his friend. But he hasn’t been in there for a couple of years and his friends and local residents have a lot of questions about what has happened to him. We are worried.
‘He is an elderly gentleman who used to write a lot of complaining letters to the parish council, but they stopped suddenly.’
Others said the last time they saw Mr Wright he was ‘ very frail’ and was ‘ struggling to look after himself ’.
One local said the estate’s new owners are private but ‘intimidating’ and that their dogs often escape into the village.
‘I do worry about him. I knew something wasn’t quite right,’ he said. ‘We never see him anymore and now we’ve got these new people here – we really don’t want them.’ Traced to his
‘We really don’t want them here’
new home in a council bungalow in Maidstone, Mr Bratton said his world was turned upside down when he was thrown out. ‘I was gutted, over 50 years I’d worked for him and his father. It just said I was “no longer required”. It came as a shock to get it in a letter,’ he said. ‘I’d rather he’d have spoken to me. His father would never have done that – he was a gentleman and would have been disappointed about what happened.’
Kent Police confirmed officers travelled to Hollingbourne to check on Mr Wright yesterday because of the concerns.
‘The man was spoken to alone and confirmed he was safe and well. no offences were identified,’ a spokesman said.
Approached by MailOnline, the Vincent family declined to respond to specific allegations. A spokesman accused reporters of trespass.
Mr Wright is believed to still be living in a single room in the farmhouse, sources said. Henry Vincent senior last night answered the door at a new white static caravan surrounded by neatly-mown grass on the estate, but did not make any comment.
The Vincents have been known to fleece the elderly in a variety of mainly cowboy building scams.
In 2003 Vincent senior, his son and five of his brothers were jailed for a total of more than 28 years between them for a £ 450,000 building scam. They would knock on the doors of elderly people telling them they had structural problems with their homes and quoting large fees to fix them.
The victims were then pressured into paying, with some even being marched to banks to withdraw funds.