CATHERINE Barber made a startling admission in her unlawful dismissal case on Wednesday, telling the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) that she had in fact backdated letters purporting to give permission for the distribution of surpluses from the ATL pension fund.

Barber, who managed the ATL Group Pension Fund Trustees Nominee Limited (the company) before her dismissal over the surplus distribution issue for which she faced a criminal trial, made the admission while being cross-examined by attorney-at-law representing the company, Hugh Wildman.

She said she backdated the letters, which made it appear that the founder of Gorstew Limited had given permission for the distribution of billions of dollars in surplus for the years 1998, 2001 and 2004. Questioned further, she said she didn’t backdate the letter in relation to the valuation for the year 2008.

Barber further testified that no one had advised or instructed her to backdate the letters and said she did it after attorney-at-law Lynda Mair advised her that consent from Gorstew for the distribution of surplus needed to have been in writing.

Barber took the company to the IDT claiming that she was unjustly dismissed as general manager of the fund. However, the company is contending that Barber’s dismissal was lawful and just.

Her claim was made before she and Patrick Lynch, the former chairman of the ATL Group Pension Scheme; and Dr Jeffery Pyne, former managing director of Gorstew Ltd, were acquitted of several counts of fraud in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court in June 2014 in relation to the distribution.

The three were acquitted after Senior Magistrate Lorna Shelly Williams upheld a no-case submission made by their attorneys. The magistrate, however, ruled that no consent was given for the three to effect the distributions of $1.7 billion in pension fund surplus covering the years 1998, 2002, 2005, and 2008.

They were alleged to have conspired to forge and backdate four letters to deceive that consent was given.

As a result of the questioning, it was revealed to the IDT panel that Barber had had at least two occasions on December 15, 2010, when questions were raised about consent, to present the letters which she said existed before 2010.

She, however, testified that she presented the letters to Stewart and others on December 16, 2010.

However, Wildman, with a line of questions, made efforts to show the tribunal that the letters could not have existed before 2010 as they were not found during an audit of the fund.

Barber, however, said that the auditor never asked for the letters and claimed that they were always on the file. Questioned further, she said she never brought the letters to the attention of anyone prior to the meeting on December 16. In fact, she said that only she and Lynch had seen the signed backdated letters prior to December 16.

She further testified that Dr Pyne had signed the letters and that she was familiar with his signature. She said that she gave the unsigned backdated letters to Lynch.

Wildman asked if she had acted properly when she backdated the letters and Barber said yes.

Later, Wildman suggested that she and Lynch were part of a “dishonest arrangement” to have the letters executed between December 15 and 16, 2010 when she realised that “this was real trouble”, but she disagreed.

He suggested that part of this collusion between Barber and Lynch was for Pyne, who had left the company prior to this, to sign off on the letters overnight on December 15, 2010.

“That is not true,” she said.

“You couldn’t present them with the letters on the 15th because they never existed,” Wildman suggested, but Barber denied the suggestion.

The next hearing of the matter is on June 23.