Documents fraudulently produced in the course of a sale of development site in 2014

In 2020, Jean Duggan made claims that documents bearing signatures in her name had been fraudulently produced during the course of a land sale between a property developer and Conor Clarkson, the accused. The documents were necessary to approve the expansion of a right of access into a development site along a laneway close to Mrs. Duggan’s home and the right of access was considered to be necessary for the site be developed for housing. In 2014, the development site at the end of the laneway was sold by Conor Clarkson to a property developer, one month after the questioned documents were produced, in October 2014. Uncertainties on the right of access only arose following a chance discussion between Mrs. Duggan’s son and a neighbour regarding the responsibility for clearing a tree which fell on the laneway during a storm.

The documents bearing the question signatures were submitted to Forensic Science Ireland for examination and comparison to specimens/genuine samples of Jean Duggan’s signature. In total, 9 specimen/genuine samples of Jean Duggan’s signature across a number of years were submitted for comparison.

Following a comparison of the questioned signatures to the genuine signature samples from Jean Duggan, it was concluded that the findings provided “limited handwriting evidence” that Jean Duggan was not the author of the signatures on the questioned documents. This limited strength of evidence was as a result of a number of limitations with the genuine specimen signature samples including but not limited to a lack of specimen signatures contemporaneous with the questioned signatures from 2014.

In February 2024, Conor Clarkson was found guilty on four charges of creating and using forged documents in the course of a sale of a development site and he was sentenced to two years in prison with the last 9 months suspended.