FACTS
F resigned as a Director from a Company about a month before its remaining directors sought to enter into car hire agreements with G. G visited F whilst he was on holiday and asked if he would be prepared to sign a personal guarantee. F explained that he had resigned as a Director and therefore he was not prepared to be tied to a Company over which he had no control.
When the Company collapsed into insolvency, G made a claim on F pursuant to a purported personal guarantee. This was a shock to F and it was a mystery to F as to how his signature had come to appear on the personal guarantee as he had resigned and left the employ of the Company some 3 weeks prior to it being signed, and taken up employment elsewhere. Despite F’s protestations and F producing examples of his signature (that were clearly different to the signature in question) G pursued the matter and also produced its own handwriting report. In compiling that report no attempt had been made to gather example signatures from F or to examine original documentation, the report itself did not comply with the relevant requirements so the findings of the report were severely flawed as they were based on insufficient evidence.
Furthermore, F was able to produce photographic evidence of his whereabouts on the date the personal guarantee was signed and those photos contained time stamps. There was not any way F could have been in the location in question to sign the personal guarantee. That, coupled with the clear differences between F’s signature and the signature in question made it clear that the personal guarantee contained a forgery.
OUTCOME
On setting out the matter clearly to G, G dropped the matter and discontinued its claim. It was clear from evidence produced by F and the flawed evidenced produced by G that F had not signed the personal guarantee.
