Find Them Dead

87 Thursday 23 May

‘Let’s have the jury back,’ Jupp said to the jury bailiff after he had taken his seat.

The jury returned and took up their positions.

The judge turned to Primrose Brown. ‘You may proceed.’

‘Thank you, Your Honour.’

She stood. ‘I am calling Cambridge handwriting expert, Professor Geoff Shaw.’

A bright-eyed man in his forties, with a mane of wild, greying hair, stood in the dock, exuding confidence.

First, the QC established the professor’s credentials as a leading handwriting authority, which included listing a number of fraud trials in which evidence he had given was a major factor in securing convictions.

Shaw, speaking with an infectious enthusiasm, began by giving evidence regarding the alleged signature of Terence Gready on the Safe Box Co document. He referred to a series of slides on the monitor next to the judge. Each was of the signature, some showing it in its entirety, some enlarged details of one part of it.

He clicked a remote control. After a short delay the signature appeared on the monitor, Terence Gready, upright, with a separation between the first and last name, above the printed name SAFE BOX CO.

‘In the interests of brevity, I will explain to you the key points to look at, without going through all the minutiae of detail. All of you will be given a copy to study later. The first area to look at is the starting strokes, which you can see clearly highlighted in yellow on the first image,’ he said, checking against the document but keeping his main focus on eye contact with the jury. ‘Next, again highlighted, is a pen lift and the appearance of a tremor, indicative of hesitation and a lack of confidence.’

The third image now appeared. There were four yellow circles on different parts of the signature. ‘This is the most telling of all the three images, as it shows clear evidence of patching. For those of you unfamiliar with graphology language, patching is the term for touching up a piece of handwriting. There are four instances of such patching on this signature, each indicated by a yellow circle.’

Shaw paused, looking thoughtfully at the jury. ‘I don’t know if any of you ever make corrections to your own signature when you’ve just signed something, but I certainly don’t — and have never done so.’ He could see from their expressions they agreed.

Shaw continued. ‘My point is that each time you sign a document, your signature does not have to be an exact replica of any previous signature, it is simply your personal mark. So, I would ask you all to think very carefully about something: if this really was Terence Gready signing his name, why would he have subsequently touched up his signature so meticulously — in four different places?’

Brown said to the witness, ‘It is the defence’s submission that this account was not opened by my client, and this is not the signature of my client.’

Shaw replied, ‘It is my professional opinion that there are a number of anomalies with the signature, and it is not consistent with the defendant’s handwriting signature samples that I was provided with.’

Brown shuffled her papers, paused for a moment and then sat down.

Cork stood up and turned to Shaw. ‘Is it correct you have only had signatures to work on and no other handwriting samples?’

‘That is correct,’ Shaw replied.

‘Am I also correct in saying that where signatures are involved you are only able to say that it is more likely or less likely to have been signed by a particular individual?’

‘In many cases that is correct. It is always difficult when you are only working with signatures. But you are able to look and comment on similarities and construction of letters and words.’

‘The point I make, Professor Shaw,’ Cork said, ‘is that because you only have signatures to work with, the weight of this evidence is limited.’

Shaw paused for a moment. ‘What I am able to tell the court is that there is a possibility the defendant did not make this signature mark, and I can say its construction is unusual.’

‘One last question, Professor Shaw. Is it possible that somebody who was seeking to throw doubt on the originality of a signature could have done so in this way — could that person have deliberately made the signature look questionable?’

‘It is possible. I can say that this signature purported to have been made by Mr Gready is not consistent to others that I have seen from him. He may have signed it, but there again someone else may have signed it attempting to forge his signature.’

‘No more questions.’ Cork sat down.

Primrose Brown rose. ‘Professor Shaw, is it fair to say from your evidence that your conclusion is that it would be highly unusual for someone to sign their own habitual signature in this way?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you, no more questions.’

‘We will break for lunch,’ Jupp said.