A British woman who was scammed out of up to £1m in a series of romance frauds died in a road crash after travelling to West Africa to try to recoup some of her losses, an inquest in Devon heard.
Janet Fordham, 69, was cheated of her life savings and her home over about five years by fraudsters thought to be operating from the UK, Germany, the US and Ghana, the inquest in Exeter was told. She flew to Accra in October 2022 after a man in Ghana, known as Kofi, claimed he could help retrieve some of the money.
Fordham began using online dating sites in 2017, her daughter-in-law Melanie Fordham said. She met a man who presented himself as a British army sergeant major working in Syria and who later claimed he was retiring to the UK and would buy a house with her. Melanie Fordham recalled warning her it sounded unbelievable and that the man would soon ask for money; Janet is believed to have handed over about £150,000 to that contact.
She was later defrauded by someone claiming to be a diplomat. Melanie Fordham said Janet “realised that she had been scammed, but initially struggled to accept it.” Money was transferred by various means, including bank transfers, post office wire transfers and possibly via a travel agent. Over the course of the frauds, Devon and Cornwall police estimate she sent between £800,000 and £1m, sold her home and land, and was living in a caravan in Devon.
Kofi told Fordham he was a doctor who had found her details while working part-time in a phone shop and offered to help recover her funds. The relationship with him developed and Fordham agreed to marry him, the inquest heard. Despite family and police efforts to persuade her not to have contact with the scammers or hand over more money, she was assessed as having capacity and could not be prevented from travelling.
On 14 February 2023, while being driven by the man in Ghana to meet a family member about the marriage, the car swerved and flipped onto its roof. Fordham, who was not wearing a seatbelt, suffered fatal head injuries and died. Devon and Cornwall police said no third party was involved in the crash; the driver admitted a driving offence.
Detective Sergeant Ben Smith described Fordham as the victim of a “sustained fraud” between 2017 and 2022. Senior coroner Philip Spinney noted “some inconsistencies and gaps in the evidence” regarding the collision and said it had not been rigorously scrutinised, but concluded that Janet Fordham died from a head injury probably sustained in a road traffic collision.
