The Ghanaian lover of a British woman who was scammed out of her £1 million life savings before dying in a mysterious car crash has hit back at her family's suggestions that she was murdered.
Janet Fordham, 69, was cheated out of a huge sum of money after being cruelly targeted by romance fraudsters, including a man claiming to be a British Army major, while her family felt helpless to intervene. The retired housekeeper was left destitute, unable to afford food, and living in a caravan at her son Martin's farmhouse in Devon.
Weeks before her death in a car accident, Janet, who had been lonely after the death of her second husband, travelled to West Africa after meeting a man on Facebook named Daniel 'Kofi' Agyapong. He apparently took pity on her and claimed he would help recover her money.
Janet's family told the Daily Mail that they were convinced she had been murdered in Ghana when the fraudsters realised she had no money left, and claimed the car crash in which she died had been staged. However, Mr Agyapong, 52, today hit back at her grieving family and insisted the pair had fallen in love and were planning to marry and build a house in Africa.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, he said Janet was 'lonely and miserable' in the UK. Rubbishing claims he was involved in her death, Mr Agyapong stated: 'I loved Janet, she was my girlfriend and we were very much in love, we were planning to get married when she was killed.'
He described the accident: 'The road was narrow and it was being repaired. We were driving towards where my family lived and then another car came towards me, it was overtaking. There was nothing I could do, to avoid it I swerved and we came off the road and turned over twice, we hit a tree, there was nothing I could do, and I take full responsibility for what happened.'
Mr Agyapong added: 'I was lucky not to be killed but Janet was in a bad way, I held her until the ambulance arrived, I went with her to the hospital. We had stopped for a break earlier and when we got back in the car, she didn't put the seatbelt on. If she had she would have survived.'
Reacting angrily to claims he was involved in her death, he said: 'Do you not think the Ghana police would have investigated this fully? Why would I want to kill her, I loved Janet and she loved me. For God's sake it was an accident.'
Police sources in Ghana confirmed that a senior official from the UK High Commission in Accra attended Janet's post-mortem and agreed with the findings of death due to a road accident, ruling out any further investigations. An official report confirms the crash happened after Agyapong swerved his Suzuki Altos off the road to avoid an oncoming car. It adds how Janet was 'found unconscious' and rushed to the Peki Government hospital where she died from a 'severe head injury'.
A police spokesman in Accra told the Daily Mail there was no suggestion of foul play. He added: 'Because the victim was a UK national, the High Commission in Accra was informed and a liaison officer attended the postmortem of the deceased at the local hospital. The pathologist ruled that the death was from a head injury following a road traffic accident and the deceased was not wearing a seatbelt.'
