‘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.’