POLICE are hunting a woman who inherited £250,000 and disappeared after damaging her dead lover's home.

Diane Oram, 45, vanished last year after the will of Patrick Lavery, a businessman from Peterlee, County Durham, was contested by his family.

Detectives in Durham are trying to find Mrs Oram, who shared a luxury detached home in Seaham with Mr Lavery for several years, before he died in February 2000 of a brain haemorrhage.

Mrs Oram, a mother-of-one, is being sought over alleged criminal damage caused to the house, which is now sold, last summer.

Mrs Oram was the sole beneficiary of garage owner Mr Lavery's will, which her parents witnessed, and she was granted probate.

But it was contested for two years by Mr Lavery's elderly mother, Ella, of Peterlee, who said his signature had been forged.

The High Court revoked the granting of probate to Mrs Oram last June.

She had to give the assets to Mrs Lavery, who has since died of cancer, but Mrs Oram vanished after the court hearing.

A close friend of Mr Lavery's said: "Ella did not go to court for the money. She just wanted to prove that her son would not have left her out of his will.

"He was a devoted son who worshipped the ground she walked on."

A spokesman for police in Seaham said: "She is wanted in connection with an allegation of criminal damage to a house. All the lights and fittings were taken.

"She has not been in east Durham for quite some considerable time, for three or four months.

"Her boyfriend was well-liked and had she been seen, we would have been informed but there have been no sightings of her."

Mr Lavery was in the Merchant Navy and when he left, launched a tyre-fitting business in Easington.

He later bought a garage in Peterlee, which he sold more than ten years ago, and opened another in the former canteen at Horden Colliery.

Anyone with information on Mrs Oram is asked to call Seaham police station on 0191-581 2255.