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No covering up similar signatures in Carnita Matthews burqa case
July 01, 2011
THE Carnita Matthews case has become a lot clearer.
The Daily Telegraph won a court application to reveal the signatures at the heart of her conviction for making a false complaint - and a key point in the decision last week to overturn that conviction.
One is from her driver licence. She admits signing that.
The other is from a statutory declaration given to police in which the highway patrol officer who booked her for not properly displaying a P-plate is accused of racism and of trying to rip the full-face niqab, similar to a burqa, from her face. She denies signing that.
A magistrate and a judge have come to different opinions on whether the Muslim mother of seven was telling the truth in a saga that sparked a row about whether women wearing a full-face veil should be forced to remove it and identify themselves to police.
Last year in Campbelltown Local Court, Magistrate Robert Rabbidge said: "The signatures are almost identical."
He convicted Ms Matthews - who did not give evidence - of knowingly making a false complaint to police and sentenced her to six months' jail.
Last week in the District Court, Judge Clive Jeffreys said: "When I compare the signature on the statutory declaration and the signature (on the licence) I am unable to conclude they appear to be the same."
Judge Jeffreys said he had observed a number of differences including in the letters "m" "t" and "s" and he could not say if the signature was hers or not.
He overturned her conviction on that and other grounds, including the woman who handed the complaint to police had not removed her niqab so he could not be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt it was Ms Matthews.
Judge Jeffreys said he had made his decision about the signatures without the help of any expert evidence.
On Thursday, after examining the signatures, one of the country's leading handwriting experts said it was usual that no two signatures by the same person would be identical.
Australian Society of Forensic Document Examiners president Dr Steven Dale said he would expect to see "some differences" in all or most of the letter formations in two examples of a person's handwriting.
As Attorney-General Greg Smith awaits imminent legal advice from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions on whether there are legal grounds to appeal against Judge Jeffreys' decision, Ms Matthews fought to stop both signatures being published.
Her lawyer Stephen Hopper claimed that to publish either would be an invasion of her privacy, despite her case that one of the signatures is not hers.
Mr Hopper said Ms Matthews had been found not guilty and should be free from the media engaging in its own investigations outside the court.
He later conceded he could not argue against the signature on the complaint to police being made public because it was not hers. However, acting on instructions from Ms Matthews, he then tried to stop the publication of the signature on her driver licence.
Counsel for The Daily Telegraph James Hmelnitsky said it was in the interest of the administration of justice to allow the publication. Late Thursday, Judge Jeffreys granted The Daily Telegraph's application.