SUPREME COURT Trial On 27 Charges Of Forgery Continues

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32029, 2 July 1969, Page 6

SUPREME COURT Trial On 27 Charges Of Forgery Continues

Several persons whose names are alleged to have been forged on certain Social Security benefits and documents by Clifford Jack Fordham, an officer in the Social Security Department, in order to obtain -the money himself, gave evidence in the Supreme Court yesterday that the signatures were not theirs, and were in a handwriting dissimilar to their own.

Fordham, aged 45 (Mr R. S. D. Twyneham), is standing trial before Mr Justice Wilson and a jury on 27 charges of forgery, to which he has pleaded not guilty. The Crown says that Fordham, who since May, 1967, was deserted wives’ officer in the Social Security Department at Christchurch, forged between August, 1967, and December, 1968, various documents so that he could obtain the proceeds from certain deserted wives' benefits for himself.

He did this, it is alleged, by falsely renewing two benefits which had been cancelled, and by purporting to appoint agents to collect the benefit order books and to cash the warrants contained in them. The case against Fordham, said the Crown Prosecutor (Mr N. W. Williamson), in opening the prosecution on Monday, rested on Fordham’s peculiarly significant position as deserted wives’ officer, and on the identification of his handwriting by an expert yet to be called. Nineteen of the 27 charges faced by Fordham concern the alleged forgery of benefit warrants—l 3 for $BB, two for $92, and four for $49 —and the other eight the alleged forgery of forms and authorisations connected with them. Fourteen of the Crown’s 23 witnesses had been heard when the trial was adjourned to this morning. Women Give Evidence The two women whose benefits Fordham is said to have falsely renewed, Gwendoline Marie Jennett Hardman and Dorothy May Whitley (formerly Brooker), both gave evidence yesterday detailing the cancellation of their benefits, and saying that they had given nobody authority as an agent to collect order books or to cash warrants.

Mrs Hardman, a store manager, said that after holding a deserted wife’s benefit since 1959, she began, in November, 1966, a venture running a boarding-house in Lincoln Road, and as this would give her means she handed in her order book. The signature of G. M. J. Hardman on a form purporting to authorise “Allan J. Johnson, of 47 Gayhurst Road,” to collect an order book and cash warrants, was not hers, nor like her writing. Witness had a son, Allan Joseph Hardman, but the signature was “not like his writing a bit” Witness knew nothing Of the name “Allan J. Johnson,” nor of the Gayhunt Road address.

The signature G. M. Hardman on another form purporting to authorise Gerald W. Hardman to cash benefit warrants was not hers, nor her son’s—“not a bit like it” witness said. Gerald William Hardman, an insurance inspector, and son of the previous witness, said he had never collected

his mother’s order book nor cashed warrants for her. The signature G. W. Hardman on a form purporting to authorise this, was not his—“nothing like my writing,” witness said—and likewise regarding two signatures on warrants for $92 which had been cashed.

Handed ta Qb Remarriage Dorothy May Whitley, now of Hamilton, said that she had obtained a deserted wife’s benefit after separation from her former husband, Arthur Thomas Brooker, but a week before her remarriage to her present husband, in October, 1967, she had handed in her order book to the Social Security Department. She had never authorised anyone to collect an order book and to cash warrants.

Shown a form purporting to authorise “John Gordon Stewart, of 146 Grahams Road,” to collect an order book and to cash warrants, and bearing the signature D. M. Brooker, witness said it was not hers, although the writing was similar. Witness had lived at 146 Grahams Road, but did not know anyone of the name “John Gordon Stewart.” Witness did, however, have a son, John Gordon Stewart Brooker, but the signature of “Stewart” on the form was unlike his writing. James Gordon Stewart Brooker, a bread roundsman, gave evidence that the signature was not his, nor like his writing. His brother, James lan Brooker, an apprentice glazier, said that he had been unaware that his mother had at the time been receiving a Social Security benefit The signature J. I. Brooker on certain warrants cashed was not his.

All the above five witnesses produced, as exhibits, sheets bearing samples of their own handwriting and signatures. Department Procedure

The rest of yesterday’s hearing was occupied by further evidence on Social Security Department procedure as to various forms and authorisations regarding deserted wives’ benefits, given by Edward Banfield Pyne, formerly registrar of the department in Christchurch, Bussell Dixon, a divisional clerk, Jack Arthur Hendy, a divisional officer, James Phillips Gordon, a senior section clerk, Keith Warren Gillard, an order-book officer—none of whom was cross-examined at any length—and Joseph Alexander Berry Wallace, a divisional officer, who will be cross-examined this morning when the trial resumes. Two Post Office employees, at the Sydenham Post Office, John Elliot Winsloe, a supervisor, and Christine Elizabeth Jeffries, a clerk-teller, also gave evidence. Miss Jeffries, asked to recall a man who had called at the Sydenham Post Office on November 26, to uplift an order book in the name of Hardman, said that he was about 40 years of age, had dark hair, wore a suit, she thought, and "seemed very nice.” Under cross-examination, Miss Jeffries was asked to recall a description she had been asked to give of defence counsel, Mr Twyneham, at the deposition of evidence in the Magistrate's Court Mr

Tyyneham was yesterday granted permission to remove his wig so that the jury could judge Miss Jeffries’s description. She recalled describing Mr Twyneham as between 45 and 50, of medium build and "the balance of his hair” greyish.