Was missing mum Bronwyn Winfield’s signature forged on alleged ‘proof of life’ cheque?

Police suspected missing Bronwyn Winfield’s signature was forged on a Medicare cheque her estranged husband put forward as proof she was still alive, her family says | NEW EPISODE

Bronwyn Winfield with her cousin Megan Read.

Police suspected missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield’s signature was forged on a Medicare cheque her estranged husband put forward as proof she was still alive, her family says.

Jon Winfield told Bronwyn’s family, friends and police the “good news” that the cheque had suddenly appeared in the family home at Lennox Head on the NSW north coast in the weeks after she disappeared.

He was adamant it wasn’t there when she vanished, leaving behind her two young daughters, Chrystal, 10, from a previous relationship, and Lauren, 5, on the night of Sunday, May 16, 1993.

Bronwyn must have quietly ­returned to the home and left the cheque, while at the same time taking some of her clothes and a pair of his jeans that were missing, he said.

An episode of the Bronwyn podcast released on Saturday examines serious unresolved questions surrounding the Medicare cheque, which strangely bore her purported signature where it should actually have been signed by the doctor.

Police sent it to London for expert comparison to Bronwyn’s known handwriting after NSW detective George Radmore began reinvestigating in 2008, family members told the podcast.

Bronwyn’s brother, Andy Read, said she previously worked at a bank, went to a GP regularly and would have known patients didn’t sign Medicare cheques issued in a doctor’s name.

“The police believe that that’s a forged signature. Who signed it?” he said.

Bronwyn’s cousin, Megan Read, said “Scotland Yard said it wasn’t her signature”.

Bronwyn Winfield's purported signature on the disputed Medicare cheque.

In 1993, the federal government issued cheques to cover most or all of a doctor’s bill.

The cheque would be issued in the name of the payee, the treating doctor, but would be sent to the patient to physically take it to the medical practitioner who could then cash it. In Bronwyn’s case, the cheque was for $40.80.

Mr Winfield told police Bronwyn made a phone call then walked out of the house and was picked up in a car by an unknown person. She has never been seen or heard from again.

Later that night, Mr Winfield drove the two girls to Sydney. Now 69, he has always emphatically denied any involvement in the disappearance.

He returned to Lennox Head with the girls around May 27, 1993, before again taking them to Sydney during the school holidays in July.

During this second trip to Sydney, Bronwyn must have returned to the house, he said.

“We went to Sydney again for two weeks. And it was during that two weeks that she came back, took clothes. And left a Medicare cheque,” he told detectives in 1998.

Bronwyn’s cousin, Ms Read, recalled Mr Winfield phoning her after “arriving home and supposedly finding that Bronwyn had returned to the house while he’d been in Sydney”.

She told police Mr Winfield was “very excited, relieved and elated” at the time.

“He stated, ‘guess what? I’ve just walked into the house and Bronwyn has been home. It’s good news. She’s OK. She has left a Medicare cheque, which wasn’t there before I left, and taken some photos of the children … she must have a boyfriend because she’s taken a pair of jeans and a jumper of mine’.”

Ms Read said she “immediately thought that this was suspicious as it did not make sense, and I thought that he had orchestrated the whole thing”.

It was “ridiculous that she would leave a Medicare cheque, yet still not touch any of her own bank accounts”, she said.

Bronwyn’s brother, Mr Read, said his suspicions skyrocketed the moment Mr Winfield phoned him about finding the cheque.

Bronwyn Winfield's signature (bottom right) on a wedding certificate.

“He said, ‘I’ve just got back to the house. Bronwyn must have been here. There’s a Medicare cheque on the bench. And there’s two bags of clothes missing’ ,” Mr Read said. “I just thought straight out to myself, ‘the bastard’s done something’. That was just clarity straight away. As soon as that phone call came.”

Mr Read was certain he asked Mr Winfield why Bronwyn would go back to the house without checking in with her friends and neighbours next door or anyone else in Lennox Head.

The cheque was dated May 1, 1993, 15 days before Bronwyn went missing. It was addressed to a townhouse where Bronwyn was living in Byron St until she decided to move her children back into the family home at Sandstone Crescent on Friday, May 14.

The payee is named in capitalised black type as Dr F.G. Hughes.

Mr Read raised the theory the cheque was in the house all along. He has questioned if Mr Winfield produced it “once he started thinking, ‘hang on there’s a bit of heat on me here’”.

Adding to Mr Read’s suspicions, he believed the bag of Bronwyn’s clothes Mr Winfield referred to was stored in the roof space behind a manhole.

Bronwyn’s brother, Andy, and his wife Michelle, at South Cronulla Beach. Picture: John Feder

“How would Bronwyn know to find her bags of clothes in the roof space? Bronwyn was always someone that was very, very feminine in ways. I know her.

“There’s no way in the world my sister would have gone and got a stepladder and been precariously 3m or 2.5m in the air trying to manhandle garbage bags, two garbage bags of clothes, out of a manhole.”

The Winfields’ neighbours Deb Hall and Murray Nolan said Mr Winfield had also told them about the cheque at the time.

“Jon had been in Sydney and said had I seen Bronwyn during the school holidays in the July school holidays and I said ‘no, why?’” Ms Hall said.

“And he said, ‘well, she’s been back to the house’. I said, ‘how do you know that, Jon?’ ‘Oh, well, I had all these bags of clothes in the garage and half of them have gone, and there’s a Medicare cheque been left on the table’.”

Ms Hall said she told Mr Winfield she couldn’t believe it.

“And I went … ‘when did she come back? Nobody saw her. Nobody heard her. Why would she not tell anybody she’s back?’”

Do you know something about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas confidentially at [e-mail]