Money repaid after Blackman artworks turn out not to be his Authenticity resolved: Charles Blackman. Art collectors who thought they bought genuine Charles Blackmans have been refunded $120,000 after the expert who authenticated the works admitted he got it wrong. As the Herald revealed in November, the famous artist's family called in police when they realised the two paintings were really the early, naive works of Blackman's dear old friend, Franki Birrell. Mrs Birrell launched Federal Court action but, following mediation, the auction house that sold the works, Deutscher and Hackett, the Blackman Trust and the expert who vouched for the paintings, Walter Granek, accept that Blackman did not create them. However, Blackman did sign them last year - three decades after Mrs Birrell painted them - believing they were his. Blackman, 84, suffers from Korsakoff's syndrome, a form of dementia that results, Mrs Birrell says, in ""unintentional confabulation by sufferers to fill in gaps in their memory"." While satisfied with the legal outcome, Mrs Birrell believes she had signed both the paintings and ""mysteriously"" those signatures appear to have been painted over or removed. That could have happened many years ago, but she would like to know who did it and when. Deutscher and Hackett's executive director, Damian Hackett, vowed last year to ""jump through hoops"" to get to the truth. He said on Friday: ""We followed the process from start to finish correctly and assisted in any way we possibly could. Our interest was to find the correct answer and, as the correct answer has turned out that the pictures were not Blackmans, the sales have been reversed and all money refunded."" In April 2012, Christabel Blackman, a daughter from the first of Charles's three marriages, was researching her father's works as part of her doctoral thesis and came across images on Deutscher and Hackett's website of the two paintings, now titled Girl With a Starry Dress Bouquet, which sold at auction for $79,300, and Girl Behind a Shower Screen, which went for $41,480. Ms Blackman, an artist and conservator, knew instantly they were not her father's. In quick order, so did Mrs Birrell and the subject of her shower painting, Blackman's second wife, Genevieve de Couvreur, who told the Herald: ""I would put my life on the line. I saw Franki painting them. I saw those works in progress."" Ms Blackman said on Friday it was a ""moral victory"" but the ordeal had cost the Blackman family in legal expenses and it had taken an enormous toll on herself ""emotionally, socially and professionally"." She would be apprehensive to ever again blow the whistle if she saw a painting wrongly sold as a Blackman. Mr Granek could not be reached for comment. In June 2011, a Brisbane medical practitioner who owned Girl With a Starry Dress Bouquet approached Deutscher and Hackett, saying he had acquired the unsigned painting from the previous owner about a decade earlier and that this owner had acquired it directly from Charles Blackman in Buderim, Queensland. In September 2011, the same vendor approached Deutscher and Hackett to sell the second painting, saying it had come from Buderim at the same time. Ms Blackman, comapring the two works to her father's, noted the ""immaturity in anatomical references"," the colours that defied the Blackman palette, the ""naive brush strokes"" and a ""shallow, shy and coy"" sentiment. It was, after all, Mrs Birrell's first year as an oil painter. She is now a much more mature artist and can fetch up to $10,000 for a painting. She understands police are still investigating the case. A statement issued to Fairfax Media through her lawyer said: ""It is evident under magnification that an area of paint on the lower right hand side of the [shower] painting has been scrubbed back and then over-painted. That over-painting is visible in normal light as a slight variance between the red of the upper and lower paint layers and covers the remains of faint lettering that Mrs Birrell says was her signature. ""The first painting also shows an area on the lower left hand side of the painting where the paint appears to have been interfered with and where Mrs Birrell says she believes she had placed her signature."" Mr Granek is a recognised Blackman expert and the Blackman Trust had long used him to authenticate the artist's works. In the case of old, unsigned works, the trust would then have Blackman sign the authenticated paintings. In the case of these two paintings, Blackman was taken to Deutscher and Hackett's Sydney gallery in Surry Hills in July and October, 2011, to sign the paintings. For this the trust charged a fee of $2750 on each occasion. The trustee and Blackman's long-time guardian, Tom Lowsenstein, did not return Fairfax Media's calls.