A former policewoman named in a false will as the sole beneficiary of an East Sussex woman's estate has been jailed for three years.

Sarah Topping, 36, used an old typewriter to forge a series of wills with her lesbian partner Melanie Leighton, who has since died.

Bogus paperwork naming Topping and her friends as beneficiaries were planted in the homes of all but one of the four dead pensioners targeted.

Leighton, 24, worked for a section of the Treasury called Bona Vacantia, which searched the homes of dead people with no obvious will or next of kin.

London's Blackfriars Crown Court heard yesterday it was a "novel and highly unusual fraud" which enabled the secret planting of bogus wills.

Among the victims was Lydia Cottington, from Eastbourne.

According to her false will, she had left Topping, of Horton Kirby, Kent, her jewellery and more than £40,000.

It also claimed she had bequeathed her £62,000 home, which Topping was about to sell when she was arrested.

The scam began after a woman died leaving a £448,000 estate, including a house in Chiswick, west London, but no will.

After the matter was referred to the Bona Vacantia, the place was searched and papers found naming a WPC Ann Lobb as a £350,000 beneficiary.

Months earlier, Topping, one of the constable's former colleagues, told her she could make "a lot of money" by allowing herself to be named in a stranger's will and splitting the proceeds.

WPC Lobb thought she was joking but when a solicitor contacted her about the unexpected windfall, she promptly reported it to her superiors.