THE Appliance Traders Limited (ATL) pension fraud trial yesterday inched closer to its end after one year of sittings in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court, Half-Way-Tree.

 The prosecution was expected to end its case yesterday, but the defence requested four documents which were supposed to have been among a bunch agreed at the March 13 sitting when the magistrate had so ruled.

 The trial was adjourned before the end of the morning session to resolve that snag.

 The prosecution is to make the documents available to the defence by the next sitting on Thursday.

 The documents are among a set that are to be entered into evidence in the absence of Gorstew Limited secretary Kenneth Lewis due to ill-health.

 Senior Magistrate Lorna Shelly- Williams ruled two weeks ago that Lewis’ statement, along with any documents pertaining to the case that he had dealings with, should be entered into evidence under the Evidence Amendment Act, because Lewis would not be appearing in person as a witness.

 Patrick Lynch, the former chairman of the pension fund; Catherine Barber, the former general manager of the pension scheme; and Jeffrey Pyne, former managing director of Gorstew Ltd, the holding company for Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart’s group of companies, are alleged to have conspired in the forging of the four letters to deceive that consent was given for the distribution of $1.7 billion in pension fund surplus.

 The prosecution maintains that the letters, which were presented to Stewart by Barber, were backdated to 1998, 2002, 2005, and 2008. Pyne, who signed the letters, had left the company seven months before December 15, 2010 when the alleged forgery was discovered.

— Paul Henry