The document examiner and fraud investigation
| Pages | 317-321 |
| Date | 01 January 1995 |
| Published date | 01 January 1995 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025657 |
| Author | M.G. Hall |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
The document examiner and fraud
investigation
M. G. Hall
Received: 14th November, 1995
Journal
of
Financial
Crime
Volume
2
Number
4
Michael Hall BSc has been a document
examiner for over 30 years. He has examined
many thousands of cases and regularly gives
expert evidence in court. He worked for the
Home Office until 1992 when he went into
private practice. He works for Document
Evidence Limited, a company that he and
several colleagues formed to provide a compre-
hensive service in document examination that is
available to any customer.
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to give the Investigator of
Fraud
an
appreciation
of
the sorts
of assistance
that the
Forensic
Document Examiner can
offer him. It gives an indication as to the
material
needed
from the
investigator
if the
examiner is
to
provide the maximum help. It
contains some information about the possi-
bilities
of
dating
documents.
INTRODUCTION
The bulk of the casework of the forensic
document examiner is concerned with
financial crime from the comparatively
minor misuse of cheques to large-scale
company frauds. The offender may well
leave a trail of pieces of paper in the
commission of the crime. The examiner
can assist the investigator by gleaning
evidence from these pieces of paper that
will lead back to the criminal. In this
presentation the types of evidence that
may be available will be outlined. The
list is not complete but it does cover the
main types.
HANDWRITING
The identification of handwriting and
signatures makes up the largest part of
the work of the examiner. Handwriting
is a human skill whereby a person gener-
ates character shapes with a writing
instrument as a visual representation of
language. The character shapes are held
within the brain as models and are trans-
lated into movements of the writing tool
by a complex physiological process. In
most practised writers this is done at
speed with little or no conscious effort.
The basic character designs are usually
learnt as a child by copying from given
simplified forms. The style taught often
varies in subtle detail from one school or
even one class to another and as children
grow up they develop their own hand-
writing characteristics as their hand-
writings depart further from the taught
style.
It is a fundamental axiom of
forensic document examination that the
normal writings of any two people are
distinguishable (given sufficient
amounts) and that the handwriting of a
person can be attributable to him.
When handwriting of disputed
authorship is scientifically compared
with a sample of handwriting of known
authorship both similarities and differ-
ences are found. Similarities will be
present even between the handwritings
of different persons as character shapes
must conform to accepted designs to be
recognisable.
Some differences will be present
between handwritings produced by the
same person because of natural variation
Page
317
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