You know those scam emails claiming that a long-lost relative has left you a small fortune?

The ones that require you to pay a small fee to facilitate the transfer into your account?

Combine that with the classic story of the illegitimate heir to the throne rising up from humble beginnings to take his rightful place, and you get Jordan Adlard Rogers, a penniless care home worker who has recently come into a lot of cash.

Penrose Estate is one of Britain’s finest country estates. When owner Charles Rogers died of a drug overdose last August at the age of 62, Jordan Rogers started his quest to obtain a DNA test proving that he was Charles’ son.

Here’s The Telegraph:

It sounds closer to a Game of Thrones plot than local West Country gossip, but eight months after he moved in, this week the answer to the burning question of ‘Who is the true heir of Penrose?’ was finally revealed to be a young, muscled local who previously didn’t have two pennies to rub together.

And that Jordan Adlard Rogers, a 31-year-old former care home worker from the nearby village of Helston, has inherited the entire £50m estate after a modern DNA test proved him to be the illegitimate son of the previous aristocratic owner, certainly adds a 21st century twist.

Jordan was raised by his mother in Cornwall and suspected that Charles might be his father from a young age. In an interview with The Daily Mail, his mother says that she told him about his father when he was eight:

Julie’s stepfather said she knew it was ‘impossible’ for anyone else to be Jordan’s father…

Recalling the time then 20-year-old Julie announced she was expecting, John Binns said: ‘She just came home one night, said she was pregnant and was going to keep the baby.

‘That was that. Nothing more was really said and the father was never ever involved although we all knew who he was.’

Scoundrel! Is it wrong that I’m enjoying the Downton Abbey realness of it all?

Jordan approached Charles about conducting a paternity test while he was still alive, but was sent to his solicitors.

“I wrote more letters in my twenties but never got a reply, then three years ago I got in contact with [his lawyers]. They said Charles didn’t want to do the test so I wrote one final letter with a DNA test kit enclosed and that was when they rang and told me Charles was dead,” Jordan told Cornwall Live.

Once Charles died, Jordan had to fight off difficult relatives who contested the inheritance, but he was eventually proven correct. Not all of his newly acquired relatives are being dicks about it, though.

Yesterday Jan Rogers, whose late husband, Michael, was an uncle to Charles, said she was “over the moon” and “shocked” that Jordan had been found, not least because the estate was at risk from less well-connected relatives.

“I’m so glad it’s gone to Jordan, who is a thoroughly lovely man. He was a carer and it shows because he is so warm and friendly,” she said of her new great-nephew.

Now in her late 80s, she would not reveal who had made a challenge to the pile but said, “I can only tell you it wasn’t a Rogers. I know it was contested but not on this side of the family. Jordan has been welcomed with open arms. He’s a Rogers through and through.”

Bless. I’d like to think she’s the Maggie Smith/ Violet Crawley of the family.

Adlard Rogers has moved his partner, Katie Hubber (below), and son Joshua, who was born last month, into the estate. He has also splashed out on a new Mercedes C63.

Jordan doesn’t have to work anymore and plans to live off the proceeds of the estate.

Long may he lord over the peasants!

[source:telegraph&dailymail]