Winner claimed during his lifetime to be worth £75 million, with £25m in offshore bank accounts and his home worth an additional £50m. But on his death his bank accounts were frozen, and a formal investigation of his affairs began. During this, it emerged that Winner had been supporting two former lovers, both of whom had been provided with living expenses and accommodation. The financial assistance extended also to his long-term personal assistant, the former Miss Great Britain Dinah May. After investigations, it was revealed that Winner's total estate was actually worth £16.8m, with total outstanding debts of £12m. In his will, Winner had left his wife a lump sum of £5m, but the residual estate was only worth £4.75m. His former wife, P.A. and lovers engaged probate lawyers to contest the will and their sums due from it. However, it then emerged that none of the newspapers that reported the aforementioned information about Michael's beneficiaries were correct and that they included only probate information from UK assets when Michael Winner was on record as stating that he had substantial assets in Guernsey. When Guernsey probate was later added, Michael had left a total of £50m and this was more than enough to provide for all his beneficiaries in full while leaving a substantial balance to the Police Memorial Trust.
