We can provide an initial assessment to establish whether an appropriate examination can be undertaken based on the documents available. We will provide advice regarding suitability of your documents and what is required in terms of comparison material. No indication of the outcome of the full examination will be given at this pre-assessment stage.

As an experienced document examiner, 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 can be 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.

Please see the Case Submission page. If you are sending original documents for examination, I recommend using Royal Mail Special Delivery post to ensure full tracking. Please provide the tracking reference once the documents have been posted.

A forensic document examiner provides an opinion regarding the authenticity or authorship of signatures and handwriting. This is based on scientific principles and involves the detailed examination and comparison of the characteristics of handwriting and signatures. Training to be a forensic document examiner requires a scientific degree and an apprenticeship, following a structured course, taking at least two years. Graphology claims to determine physical characteristics and attributes of personality from handwriting and signatures. Many graphological organisations offer correspondence courses that can be completed within a few months.

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

It is not usually possible to determine accurately the date that a document was produced. Sometimes indirect methods may provide an indication of the approximate date (for example the presence of a watermark or use of a particular typeface). We cannot determine the age of ink entries but may be able to provide details of international experts who can conduct 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 9-point scale below, ranging between positive, inconclusive and negative opinions. This scale is effective from 13 June 2021. Conclusive evidence - identification of one individual to the exclusion of all others Very strong evidence - most unlikely that any other individual was responsible Strong evidence - unlikely that any other individual was responsible Limited evidence - on the balance of probabilities it is likely that the individual was responsible but alternative explanations cannot be excluded Inconclusive - cannot determine whether or not the individual was responsible Limited evidence - on the balance of probabilities it is likely that the individual was not responsible but but alternative explanations cannot be excluded Strong evidence - unlikely that the individual was responsible Very strong evidence - most unlikely that the individual was responsible Conclusive evidence - the individual can be eliminated as being the writer

In order to provide a reliable opinion, we always carry out a full examination and assess the significance of the findings based on my 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 is an abbreviation for "questioned document". A questioned document can be any handwriting, signature, printed material or mark whose authenticity is in dispute. A QD Examiner is an expert in the examination of Questioned Documents, and is commonly known as a Forensic Document Examiner.