The much awaited meeting of the new temporary AFTAL steering committee took place in Coventry on the 3rd January 2013 with the primary objective of addressing the much written about subject of Michael Jackson autographs. The committee is made up of 7 people, 2 of which are not AFTAL dealers. The former board members which included Dominic Manning stood down in order that Garry King and a new committee could then look at things afresh in an effort to resolve the ongoing problem. This new committee has been given free reign to look into and resolve the situation, and is totally free to decide how AFTAL shall move forward.

These alleged fake Michael Jackson signed items were first spotted by some people on a US forum, and quickly linked to Dominic Manning of Behind the Scenes. It was alleged that Dominic had sold hundreds of these to UK dealers via the AFTAL network. It was also suggested that Dominic had sold them as ‘in person’ signatures shortly after MJ’s passing, and had possibly sold hundreds.

It was also quickly established that the MJ’s in question had in fact been mainly purchased from another collector, Adrian Longden, who is well known amongst some US and UK in person collectors.

Adrian is not now, and never has been an AFTAL dealer, so we have very little control over whether he helps out in this matter or not, but we can confirm that he was willing to make a statement for us and spent time being interviewed by well known solicitor advocate Magnus Boyd at his London office.

After a great deal of discussion between all parties, it transpired that Adrian claimed to have obtained around 350 signed images/CD and LP covers during time spent mainly in LA.

Adrian was happy to discuss this with Magnus Boyd who AFTAL employed to both consider action because of the possible libellous accusations being made against AFTAL and its dealers, and in an effort to get an independent opinion of Adrian’s story.

Magnus Boyd confirmed to us that Adrian had confirmed to him via his witness statement that he spent a lot of time in the USA obtaining autographs, and that he believed the MJ items amounted to around 350 in total but that he did not get all of these himself in person, but rather used others, or the items were handed in to staff to be signed and collected later.

These collected items he then sold directly to various dealers and collectors both in the USA and the UK.

Adrian has given us what he considers to be an accurate breakdown of the items he sold and Magnus also considers that in his opinion his statement was both honest and truthful. Magnus also states “by putting this information in a witness statement and signing a statement of truth he was placing himself in a position where, if that statement was used in any subsequent court proceedings and Adrian was found to have been dishonest, he would be in contempt of court. Adrian’s awareness of this last point led him to take considerable care to ensure his statement was accurate.”

We still need to get accurate figures from Dominic Manning as to the number he sold here in the UK, but we expect to have this soon. We are also unsure of the exact number that Dominic obtained in person either here or in the USA, but so far it seems the number will be less than 15.

Whilst we all were very much aware that only one definitive answer and decision was only ever going to be popular and acceptable, we all went into the meeting with a totally open mind, determined to bring this matter to a conclusion, as there are many other matters also requiring our attention.

We began by viewing all the M.J. stock I ( Ken Mills ) had purchased directly from Adrian Longden, items Garry King had obtained from Dominic Manning and countless other examples of known 100% genuine ones including one I obtained myself personally in the late 1990's.

We also had quite a number of examples of MJ autographs which Roger Epperson had authenticated for R & R plus many other examples from other sources, all of which we had been very careful to include.

On viewing these many examples it was clear there were at least two variations of Michael's signature where the 'J' in Jackson either came down in more or less a straight line, or where he continued the line round into a looped 'J'.

On viewing known genuine examples it appears that both variations were used by him at different times. Some of the signed photos we have compared favourably with ones authenticated by Roger, and out of 20 examples only 2 did not make a decent match. We came to the conclusion on the day, that despite our vast combined knowledge it was almost impossible to split the autographs into two separate piles of 'genuine' and 'fake'.

Each time we thought we could see some light at the end of the tunnel someone would then point out something else that could then change our view.

Garry King had made a suggestion shortly after all this started, that it was a well documented medical fact that the use of certain drugs could affect that way in which you sign your name, and with the amounts and types of medication Michael was taking at that time this certainly seems feasible. But that suggestion was not accepted in certain quarters too well, but as we all know, if drink can affect you’re driving and certainly your handwriting then why not drugs? Surely this is something that should be considered?

Jason Thanos who is widely regarded as one of the top and most trusted In Person collectors worldwide, then suggested we view the backs of the photos to see if there was anything that might help us including dates, print numbers etc.This only showed us a letter in the corner of some which suggests they were ones taken into the house and other places. Some had the letter 'A' for Adrian in the top corners, which does suggest that those items were possibly the ones that had been taken into a house or elsewhere to be  signed and then returned later, although what we don't  know is 'who actually signed them behind closed doors'.

This tends to confirm that certain items were handed into the house Michael Jackson was using, or a member of his entourage took them in to be signed and then handed back later. It is possible that these items were then signed by another hand and therefore not obtained ‘ In Person ‘ and should not have been offered for sale as such.

It has been long established that certain stars have used a secretary for signing their fan-mail etc although this has not been widely discussed before in respect of Michael Jackson, but is this what was happening ?

If anyone in the U.S. can assist us with a possible contact either at Michael's Estate or who would be likely to help shed some light on Michael's signing habits during his last few months then please let me know and I will contact them.

Our conclusion was that it would be wrong to come to any decision on that day as we obviously needed both more time and more evidence, and we are currently making every effort to do this.

We viewed the infamous DVD which is in no way conclusive and is more of a film record of collectors specifically chasing Michael Jackson for autographs.

It does however prove beyond all doubt that Adrian Longden was in Los Angeles during the 3 month period before MJ's death, and had dialogue on a one to one basis with both MJ and his entourage as did a number of other collectors.

The numbers obtained during that period and how they were obtained became the subject of our next investigation and many AFTAL Dealers were phoned in an attempt to get numbers purchased and from where so we could more accurately examine the scale.

The DVD showed us that due to Michael's generous nature, on a number of occasions as many as 20/30 items were taken into various locations at Michael's request and brought out later with a signature on them. This confirms that there is a distinct possibility that those items were not signed by M.J. himself but by someone on his behalf.

In addition, an article in the Autograph Collector Magazine (Jan 2010) confirmed that he had become a very generous signer. “Jackson was always a generous signer and probably signed well over 100,000 autographs over his career, but in the last months of his life he took it to a new level”. “He was signing like a madman in L.A. and Las Vegas since October,” Epperson said. “If you caught him leaving tour rehearsals at Staples Center you could hand him 50 things and he’d sign them all.”

A professional collector reported, “It was the best kept secret among the pros. They really exploited the guy. Some got hundreds of items signed. They’re selling them now for $1,000-$2,000 each.

“Jackson was a sweetheart. You could knock on his limo window and hand things to his driver and Jackson would sign them in the car. These guys were handing him boxes of stuff.”

All of that of course only goes to prove that MJ did indeed sign many hundreds of items in the months leading up to his death contrary to what many had said on the forums, and we have had this confirmed by a number of other people, who have also confirmed that Adrian as well as others obtained considerable numbers of signed M.J. items during this time.

If anyone else has any categoric evidence to prove that Adrian Longden or anyone else known to him might have faked MJ's autograph, and is prepared to come forward and enlighten us, then we will be very pleased to hear from them. But in the meantime we can only surmise that the quantity that seems to be involved was more than possible to obtain.

In conclusion, we all had roughly a 500 mile round trip and spent a good 7 hours in total viewing and discussing this matter. We all felt that as a group we are neither qualified enough, nor have enough information at this time to make the decision most people had hoped for. We have listed many things we still need to do in order to continue our investigations, and have already made a start on these.

Anyone who thinks we have tried to cover up any matter relating to this investigation is perfectly entitled to their opinion, but I can assure you they could not be more wrong.

In a lot of ways it was frustrating not to have left the meeting with any solid conclusion, but all of those on the committee now know that it isn't quite as cut and dried as a lot of people had imagined.

Further meetings and investigations will continue in order to try and arrive at the truth, and we will of course keep everyone informed as and when we have something to report. I would reiterate that if anyone has any information not previously reported or supplied then we would all be glad to hear from you and your information will be dealt with in the strictest of confidence.