Attorney denies conspiring on witness statements in ATL trial

The general legal counsel to the Appliance Traders Limited (ATL) group of companies yesterday conceded that sections of his witness statement in the billion-dollar fraud trial of three former executives was "identical" to that of ATL boss, Gordon "Butch" Stewart, but insisted there was no collusion.

Dmitri Singh was giving evidence under cross-examination as the ATL Pension Fund fraud trial resumed in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate Court after a four-month break.

The former chairman of the pension scheme, Patrick Lynch, and former general manager, Catherine Barber, along with Dr Jeffrey Pyne, the former managing director of Stewart's holding company Gorstew Limited, are on trial for allocating more than $1.7 billion to members of the scheme without Gorstew's consent and using four forged letters to justify the allocation.

Singh testified that the two witness statements were given to investigators at the group's Half-Way Tree Road head offices at 10:30 a.m. on January 21, 2011.

Defence attorney K.D. Knight, who is representing Pyne, had both statements shown to Singh before directing his attention to several sections where the wordings were the same.

"Both of you even made the same mistake?" Knight questioned, pointing to a section in the statements that made reference to "the December 8th".

"I can only speak for my statement," Singh responded.

"A remarkable similarity in language, wouldn't you agree?" Knight pressed.

"Yes," Singh again responded.

"Was there collaboration in the production of the statements?" Knight continued.

"No," the ATL attorney replied.

"So it is by sheer coincidence that the same words are used?" Knight asked.

"I don't know," Singh replied.

The trial is scheduled to continue today when defence attorneys will again cross-examine Carolyn Bell-Wisdom, a senior manager at the auditing firm PwC, and ATL Chief Financial Officer David Davies.