Insurance proposals forged, court told

Press, 1 June 1977, Page 3

Insurance proposals forged, court told

Staff reporter Someone had forged the signatures on life-insurance proposal forms taken out for a Christchurch woman not long before she died, a police handwriting expert told the Magistrate’s Court at Greymouth yesterday. Mr J. K. Paterson, S.M., was told that Ronald David Bailey had taken out a $19,000 life-insurance policy on his wife less than a week before the police allege he killed her on the West; Coast. Bailey, aged 39, an unem-j ployed salesman, was| appearing for the taking of; depositions on a charge of [ the murder of Margaret Joy; Bailey at Kiwi Point, on the ■ Grey River, on February 81 last year. Detective Senior-Sergeant I J, A. West, a police docu-l ment examiner, said he had: compared the signatures on[ two life-insurance proposal | forms, with specimen signatures in Mrs Bailey’s hand-i writing. He said the signa- \ tures on both exhibits were; copied facsimilies of Marga-1 ret Joy Bailey’s signature. [ “The signature on the! proposal forms displayed 1 pen-lifts and other features | which are classic examples! of a forgery by copying,” he' [said. | There was “compelling I evidence” that the defendant 'had been responsible for the handwriting on part of one of the forms. However, he would offer no conclusive opinion about who was responsible for the two forged signatures. lan Robert Hartland, an insurance representative,

’said that the defendant had come into the A.M.P. insurance office in Christchurch to inquire about cover for himself and his wife. He had been advised to insure himself for $40,000, and his wife for $19,000. Witness said he had asked to visit Bailey’s home to discuss the proposals, but had been told that this would not be convenient. The defendant and his wife had been to a marriage guidance counsellor in the , months leading up to her ’death, and the defendant had also visited a psychiatrist at •Sunnyside Hospital, said Defective D. J. Cartwright, [who took a statement from [the defendant at Christ•church on February 13. The defendant told him he had taken tape-recordings of this wife “to show her what |she sounded like.” ’ Mrs Bailey had been irate, !and had demanded that the [tape be destroyed. } The statement said that [just before his wife died, the defendant had been walking ;along the riverbank with [her, holding hands. She had •climbed over a rock outcrop to relieve herself, and two or three minutes later the defendant had heard her; call: “Ron.” He had dragged her from ’ the river, and applied mouth-1 to mouth resuscitation with--out success. “1 tried to find her pulse, but I couldn’t find one. Then I realised she was dead,” he had said. Dr N. M. Hartwell, of Dobson, told the Court that Mrs Bailey’s body was “very cold” when he first examined it at the scene.

It had then warmed up—indicating that she had died less than an hour earlier.

A Dunedin schoolboy, aged 13, said in evidence that he saw the defendant on his knees beside the bndy. The defendant told him to run up to the road, and stop the first car he could.

One motorist who stopped, Martin James Healey, a lineman said the defendant had stopped him from approaching the body. “He appeared to be crying” said witness. I “He put his hands on my 'shoulders and stopped me. I i asked him if he had tried resuscitation, and he said he had.” In a later attempt by the police to reconstruct the incident—in which Police Constable Alan Liddell was drowned in the river—detective Cartwright said the tests had involved a policewoman floating down the river and being brought to the bank by Constable Liddell. The constable had reached the policewoman twice, but had got into difficulties, the third time. Forty-six witnesses will give evidence during the hearing, which will be shortened by the use of new legislation contained in the Summary Proceedings Amendment Act, 1976. This allows written statements made by witnesses to the police to be admitted as evidence with the consent of defence counsel. The defence had consented to the admission of such statements from 23 witnesses.