Before submitting a case, we offer an initial assessment to determine if an appropriate examination can be conducted based on the available documents. We will advise on the suitability of your documents and the necessary comparison material. Please note, we do not provide any indication of the examination outcome at this pre-assessment stage.

As experienced document examiners, we believe that our assessments will withstand scrutiny in a court of law. However, to provide even greater surety to clients, appropriate peer review of findings will be conducted as part of the examination. We believe peer-review is an important part of the examination process and ensures that clients have complete confidence in the content of the report that they receive.

Where it is intended that reports will be used as evidence in court, reports will contain all of the necessary declarations and clauses that ensure compliance with current court submission procedures. For Civil cases, reports will be compliant with Part 35 of the Civil Procedure Rules.

To submit a case, please refer to our Case Submission page. If you are sending original documents for examination, we recommend using Royal Mail Special Delivery to ensure full tracking. Once posted, please provide us with the tracking reference.

A Forensic Document Examiner uses scientific principles to provide opinions on the authenticity or authorship of signatures and handwriting, involving detailed examination and comparison. This role requires a scientific degree and an apprenticeship of at least two years. In contrast, Graphologists claim to determine physical characteristics and personality traits from handwriting, often through short correspondence courses.

All examinations are non-destructive, so your documents will not be altered or damaged whilst in our possession.

Determining the exact date a document was created is generally not possible. However, we can sometimes provide an approximate date using indirect methods like identifying watermarks or specific typefaces. While we cannot determine the age of ink entries, we can refer you to international experts who specialise in such examinations.

Handwriting and signature cases will be reported using a scale of opinions, in line with similar scales used by forensic document examiners in the UK and worldwide. We use the 7-point scale below, ranging between positive, inconclusive and negative opinions. (a) Very strong support for the proposition that the questioned entry was written by the author of the known writing(s), rather than the alternative proposition that another person was responsible. (b) Strong support for the proposition that the questioned entry was written by the author of the known writing(s), rather than the alternative proposition that another person was responsible. (c) Limited support for the proposition that the questioned entry was written by the author of the known writing(s), rather than the alternative proposition that another person was responsible. (d) The evidence is inconclusive; the findings provide approximately equal support for the proposition that the questioned entry was written by the author of the known writing(s) and the alternative proposition that another individual was responsible. This is a neutral opinion regarding the potential writer. (e) Limited support for the proposition that the questioned entry and the known writing(s) were produced by different writers, rather than the alternative proposition that the same person was responsible. (f) Strong support for the proposition that the questioned entry and the known writing(s) were produced by different writers, rather than the alternative proposition that the same person was responsible. (g) Very strong support for the proposition that the questioned entry and the known writing(s) were produced by different writers, rather than the alternative proposition that the same person was responsible. Conclusive opinions in forensic handwriting examinations represent the highest degree of confidence and are rarely scientifically justified, as they require the exclusion of all other propositions. Any such opinion, if made, would be described in the report and would indicate an absolute identification or elimination of a writer. A “No opinion” or “Insufficient” conclusion applies when the available handwriting (or signature) material is too limited (e.g. in amount, complexity, quality, or comparability) to allow for a meaningful comparison; that is, an examination is unlikely to yield anything other than a neutral opinion.

In order to provide a reliable opinion, we always carry out a full examination and assess the significance of the findings based on our experience. All results are provided in a report, with images where considered useful, and the report includes any necessary declarations for use in court. On rare occasions it may be possible to provide a brief summary of the findings, but this must be discussed prior to instructions being agreed.

No. It is not possible to predict the outcome of a case, even if documents are provided for an initial assessment. Unfortunately there are occasions when it is not possible to determine whether or not a signature is genuine. This could be due to the quality of the documents available, the number of known documents provided, the variation within a signature and the complexity of the signature. In such cases the evidence may be inconclusive.

"QD" stands for "questioned document". This term refers to any handwriting, signature, printed material, or mark whose authenticity is in dispute. A QD Examiner, also known as a Forensic Document Examiner, is an expert in examining these questioned documents.