Hi Richard,
Are you able to continue with this strategy? Because I am also following the same strategy and had a lot of issues.
Please look at the following thread.
https://community.jboss.org/thread/204460
The difference is I am using EJB instead of spring.
@Mauricio:- Please have a look at it. Not sure where tha cause of the problem lies. Is it hibernate issue or jBPM one?