Try as i might i cannot see how you parent your existing props to V4.
Can anyone put any light my way as to how
Am i missing anything apart from my brain

Um , same way you do for anything else , or am I missing something obvious.  I normally do parenting in the hierarchy editor, just select the prop and drag and drop it on the body part to be the parent .

Position the prop on her where you want it
Go into windows/parameters
click on the top of parameters box under 'properties'
and click on 'set parent'
pick the part of V4's body you want to be the parent
save prop as 'smart'

or 

open heirarchy window
click on the prop
and drag it to the body part of V4 you want to make the prop a child of
then save prop as 'smart'