Dennis William WARDROBE

Signature spurious, witness says

SYDNEY: A second handwriting witness gave evidence in the District Criminal Court yesterday at the trial of Mr Ian Sinclair, a former Cabinet Minister, that signatures on the 1975 annual returns of three funeral companies were spurious.

Mr James Buglio, of Balgowlah Heights, told the court there were 15 gross dissimilarities between the genuine signature of Mr George M. Sinclair and those on the annual company returns.

Mr George Sinclair was auditor and financial controller of the three funeral companies and the father of Mr Ian Sinclair. He died in January, 1976.

Mr Ian Sinclair has pleaded not guilty to three charges of forging and three of uttering, each with intent to defraud, and three of making false statements in the annual returns.

The funeral companies are Allan Walsh (Hornsby) Pty Ltd, Allan Walsh Pty Ltd of Chatswood and G. Beavan Pty Ltd of Bowral.

Last Tuesday a police handwriting witness, Detective-Sergeant Denis Wardrobe, gave evidence that the signatures of Mr George M. Sinclair on the three company returns were not genuine. He could not say who was the author of the signatures.

Mr Buglio, a private document examiner, said many facets of the spurious signatures were totally alien to the writer of the genuine signatures.

There was poor line quality caused by the lack of speed in writing and indications that the pen had been lifted from the paper and then carefully replaced.

Mr Jack Hiatt, QC, for the Crown,

asked Mr Buglio whether the characteristics of the spurious signatures could

have been caused by the writer being seriously ill or having drugs, medication

or alcohol.

Mr Buglio said that this was ” extremely remote ” and ” nigh on impossible “. One would expect some deterioration, but there would still be some writing habits.

“You would not expect that a sick person would have the visual activity nor muscular control to replace the pen when it had been lifted”, he said.

In reply to Mr Murray Gleeson, QC, for Mr Sinclair, he agreed he had not known when he gave evidence at committal proceedings in January that cheques

used as a comparison to the annual returns were signed about a week before the date they bore.

The trial will continue today.

5 — Forged signature alleged

On 12th April 1976 Ian Sinclair filed with the Corporate Affairs Commission Annual Returns for the year ended 31st December 1975 for Allan Walsh Chatswood, Allan Walsh Hornsby and G. Beavan.

These Returns were handwritten, all the writing on them being his writing with the exception of some signatures. The Returns contained information that each company held an Annual General Meeting on 31st December 1975 and that accounts were laid before each Annual General Meeting. In fact, no Annual General meeting of any of these companies was held on 31st December 1975 and no accounts could have been presented as none had been prepared. Ian Sinclair, at the time he filed these documents, was well aware of both these matters.

Each Return contains in it a certificate purporting to have been signed by George Sinclair as auditor of the company, certifying that the accounts for the year ended 30th June 1975 of each company had been audited.

When I took evidence from Mrs Dunkerley [ an employee of Mr George Sinclair ] she expressed doubts about the genuineness of the signature “George M. Sinclair” on the 1975 Annual Return of G. Beavan. I also showed the signatures on these documents to Miss Rene Jones who had worked for George Sinclair for forty-four years and who was familiar with his signature. She expressed doubt about these signatures, but was not certain.

I first asked Ian Sinclair about the signatures on the 1975 Annual Return of G. Beavan when I took evidence from him on 3rd July 1978. He identified for me his signatures on that document, and pointing then to the signature “George M. Sinclair” he said:

“That is my father’s signature, George Sinclair, Auditor. This is while he was ill, yes, that’s my signature.

Q. That’s your signature.

A. My signature as Director and my father’s as auditor. This was made up while my father was critically ill, and, I am afraid, only partly able to communicate.

Q. Can you recall when that document was prepared?

A. It would have been prepared at the time of my father’s serious illness

before his death.

Q. As I understand it, your father was seriously ill for some considerable time.

A. That’s right, but I mean this was in the last days. This was made up to 31st December. It was signed by him, this is certainly his signature here, George M. Sinclair, and it was prepared, it would have been before his death. In other words it was the beginning of January. It is a fairly faint hand at that stage”.

On 26th January 1979 I read out to Ian Sinclair what Mrs Dunkerley said about the signature on the G. Beaven Return for 1975, and he said, although I did not specifically ask him a question about this signature:

“My query is that I certainly had not signed my father’s signature on anything and I am concerned that there seems to be a suggestion with Exhibit 82 that it’s not his signature. I certainly didn’t put it there and I am at a loss to understand who would have put it there if my father didn’t put it there and that’s why I’m concerned”.

Later on the same day he said: “I certainly have not signed my father’s signature on anything at any time and if I ever have, and I didn’t in this instance, I’ve always put pp. I. Sinclair or I.S. or such. I haven’t on any of these documents for any of these companies”.

Since I commenced my Inquiry I have obtained possession of hundreds of cheques bearing the signature of George Sinclair, and I have seen his writing on numerous other documents. The three signatures, “George M. Sinclair”, on three Annual Returns appeared to me to be quite unlike the signature of George M. Sinclair found, for example, on the cheques in his personal account. On 26th July 1979 I showed these three original Annual Returns to Ian Sinclair, drawing his attention to the signatures purporting to be those of his father, and I asked him to tell me when those signatures were put on the documents. He told me that these documents were among papers left by his father at the time of his death, that his father had told him he had started to prepare the Annual returns and he wanted him to conclude them and file them.

Ian Sinclair told me that he had found these documents some time after the death of his father, i.e. after 20th January 1976.

When I asked him to point out to me the handwriting of his father on any portion of these documents he was unable to do so, and said that the signature was not exactly like his father’s normal signature but he presumed that they were signed before he died.

When I put to him that, apart from the signatures on these documents, all details were written by him, in his own handwriting, he agreed except that the ruling out of irrelevant portions of the forms was done by somebody else as, according to him, he did not have a ruler. He said that he had had discussions with his father about these companies and had believed that everything was in order, although he realised, in fact, no Annual General Meetings had been held and no accounts had been presented. He also agreed that what he was putting to me was that he had found three bland documents with the only writing on them being, in each case, the signature “George M. Sinclair”. He said that they weren’t just blank documents, however, as they were connected with papers relating to each of these three companies, and it was because of that that he was able to fill in the details on them.

There are in my custody files of George Sinclair relating to each of these three companies, Each file contains, amongst other things, in George Sinclair’s own handwriting information which was apparently included in the 1974 Annual Return of the company. Ian Sinclair told me that these documents were with a lot of other documents relating to these companies at his mother’s house. I asked him specifically whether he placed the signature “George M. Sinclair” on any of these documents and he denied doing this, claiming these signatures were on the documents when he found them and that the documents, apart from the signatures “George M. Sinclair” were, in each instance, blank.

When I put to him that he had lodged the documents without checking whether an audit had been carried out or an Annual General Meeting had been held, he told me that he presumed an audit had been carried out for each company be cause his father signed the form as auditor. He also said that his father’s signature varied from time to time and that he sometimes left things in blank. He again added that he knew the accounts had not been completed and an Annual General Meeting had not been held.

In the bundles of papers made available to me there was a file of George Sinclair’s containing a number of blank Annual Returns; none of these had been signed. The Annual Return of Sinclair Pastoral Company which was typed and signed by George Sinclair as auditor was filed on 15th January 1976, something which turned out to be of some significance.

I found it difficult to accept Ian Sinclair’s evidence that he had found three Annual Returns which were blank except for the signatures of his father and that he thereby felt en titled, because they were connected with documents to the companies, to complete them and file them. Although he knew that none of the companies had held an Annual General Meeting no accounts had been presented, and, obviously, despite his denials, that no accounts had been audited, he still lodged documents. Even if this explanation were true, it says little for his sense of responsibility as a director of these companies (as he believed himself to be) to file documents in such circumstances. I also found it difficult to reconcile this evidence with the evidence given by him on 3rd July 1978 that the 1975 G. Beavan Annual Return was prepared before the death of his father and that the signature “George M. Sinclair” was “certainly” the signature of his father.

Since I was not satisfied with these explanations, and the signature “George M. Sinclair” on these Annual Returns did not appear to me to be genuine, I arranged for Det Sgt Denis William Wardrobe, the Officer-in-Charge of the Document Examination Unit, Scientific Investigation Section of NSW Police Force, to examine these signatures and to compare them with signatures of George Sinclair on cheques signed by him. I also invited Det Sgt Wardrobe to compare the signatures with the signature “George M. Sinclair” appearing on the 1975 Annual return for Sinclair Pastoral Company. Det Sgt Wardrobe, after he had carried out his examination, told me that the signatures “George M. Sinclair” appearing on the Annual Returns of Allan Walsh Chatswood, Allan Walsh Hornsby and G. Beavan were not genuine signatures and bore the elements of forgery. He said that they lacked speed, were slowly written, shown by hesitancy, that the size of the letters was not constant, that they varied quite considerably, that they were written slowly and less skilfully than the signatures on each of the cheques, showing some similarity with the genuine signatures, and said that the only logical conclusions that he could find from the examination was that somebody has either had a genuine signature from which to copy or it was copied from memory by somebody who knew the signature of the person involved.

Amongst other signatures looked at by Det Sgt Wardrobe were signatures on cheques signed by George Sinclair within a few days of his death on 20th January 1976. In his opinion, none of those signatures showed any loss of fluency, despite the fact that they were written by a person close to death….

At the request of McGormly [ Mr Ian Sinclair’s counsel ] I permitted Ian Sinclair to have the signatures and documents examined by Det Sgt Wardrobe looked at by Mrs Patricia Schutz, a person who is a qualified handwriting expert. She examined these signatures, without being made aware of Det Sgt Wardrobe’s finding, and came to exactly the same conclusions as he did….

[ The documents ] were filed months after his father’s death and at a time when he realised that the affairs of these companies were in a mess. He obviously felt it necessary to file the documents himself; otherwise, he could have asked Mr Haylen, who was already at work trying to prepare accounts for these companies, to file them….

I do not accept Ian Sinclair’s explanation that, after his father’s death, he found three blank documents with three signatures purporting to be his father’s, although not looking like them, connected with three bundles of papers concerning the three companies. I also do not accept that these documents were completed before his father’s death and singed by his father. The circumstances of the matter, his unacceptable and inconsistent explanations, the lack of motive on the part of anyone else, including his father, to forge these signatures, coupled with his filling in and lodging documents he knew to be false, convinced me that these signatures were forgeries and that he was the author of them. It follows from this that I regard his denials to me as being false,, and deliberately so.