Disappointed by the dismissal of the US$2 million Sacred Heart Church fraud case, Roman Catholic Bishop Frances Alleyne says the inability of the judicial system to gather the necessary evidence is troubling.
“The initial reaction was one of strong disappointment. I find it alarming. Here it is that it was thrown out of court… so, there is something about the judicial system that is not able to garner the necessary evidence, so that itself is very troubling,” Bishop Alleyne told Stabroek News in a recent interview.
The perpetrators of the fraud tried to secure millions of dollars through a bogus insurance claim they filed with the GuyFlag Insurance Company after the 2004 Christmas day fire that destroyed the Sacred Heart Church building on Main Street.
From the time a report was lodged with the then Commissioner of Insurance Maria Van Beek about a suspected fraud, there was a trail of evidence that could have at least secured a conviction, including multiple signatures on the insurance claim, but only Fred Sukhdeo, who was dubbed the mastermind, was charged.
Five years after the case began in the court, Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton dismissed it last week, saying that there was insufficient evidence against Sukhdeo.
It was alleged that on December 29, 2004, Sukhdeo, with intent to defraud, forged a document purporting to be a GuyFlag fire and perils claim for US$2 million ($400 million) for the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. He was also accused of trying to obtain the said sum of money by virtue of a forged fire and perils claim form.
According to the prosecution’s case, GuyFlag submitted a bogus claim for payment to its reinsurance agent and Sukhdeo, who was the head of the sister operation, the National Cooperative Credit Union Limited, was presented as a representative of the church that was dealing with the fire. It was when GuyFlag/Sukhdeo allegedly approached a claims adjuster here that the alleged scam was discovered, resulting in his arrest on November 17, 2005. He was not charged until March the following year, with forgery and endeavouring to obtain upon a forged document and was released on $75,000 bail on that occasion.
Although the fraud did not really affect the church directly, Bishop Alleyne noted that the planners lacked respect for the church. “They were using the burning down of the church and somebody then used a forged insurance policy to make a claim,” he said, recalling that when he realised that something was wrong he immediately made a report to the insurance commission.
The loss adjuster, Gregory Yeadon, of Barbados, went to see Bishop Alleyne after he was called upon by the insurance company to investigate a claim in 2005.
At the time of the fire, none of the Roman Catholic Church buildings in Guyana were insured.
According to Bishop Alleyne, Yeadon had gone to the insurance company and had asked to see the owner of the church. “They initially, apparently escorted him or set up a meeting for him to meet a so-called trustee of the church…,” he said.
He said the main reason he approached the Commissioner of Insurance was because of his concern that there was a company with some questionable activities. “Were they doing this to other clients? Were they using similar situations to exploit them? In the interest of others, who may be vulnerable, I thought that I should make this known to the Commissioner of Insurance,” he said, while pointing out that he was shown an insurance policy which had forged signatures and there was little the church could have done to safeguard itself. “There is no way of keeping vigilance on that [insurance scams] except perhaps if all claims pass through the Commissioner of Insurance or if there is some level of monitoring these things,” he said.
During the course of the trial, which started in 2006, there had been lengthy delays, mainly due to the absence of witnesses. Commenting on that situation, Bishop Alleyne said that it was this aspect of the case that disappointed him. “That, in fact, is my disappointment in the whole thing,” he said.
After four years, the case was put aside indefinitely in 2010, but it was ordered reopened last year and the first hearing took place last December.
Bishop Alleyne also noted that at one stage, in a bid to help, he wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), asking for attorneys Nigel Hughes and Gino Persaud to be appointed to lead the state’s case, which would be done at no cost to the state.
The DPP, however, never responded to the request, not even with an acknowledgment of the letter.
“These were things that we thought could help us and what I was advised is that cases like this one were very technical,” Bishop Alleyne explained. “Without knowing all the details, there seems to have been enough evidence to at least make it very clear that something terribly untoward happened,” he added.
Desired result
Meanwhile, Gino Persaud, in an invited comment, said that the dismissal of the case came as no surprise. “This was anticipated, given the disastrous handling and conduct of the case,” he said, explaining that police prosecutors were changed several times and each successive prosecutor “appeared to have their own respective challenges in conducting the case.”
He recalled attending court once with Bishops Francis Alleyne and Benedict Singh, who were summoned despite having completed their testimony several months prior. The magistrate had to apologise to them for wasting their time after verifying that the record reflected that each of them had completed giving evidence and was cross-examined. On the same occasion, the magistrate remarked that the earlier testimony of Yeadon, the loss adjuster, would amount to naught and would have to be expunged from the record because proper procedures were not followed, he said.
Persaud told Stabroek News that it was unclear if the prosecution was subsequently able to remedy the situation by having him return and testify again. However, this newspaper was told that this did not happen and the week before the case was dismissed the prosecution closed its case without his evidence. Yeadon was the key witness in the matter and without his testimony there was no other evidence that could have been used to secure a conviction.
Persaud dubbed the case “a good example of the severe limitations of police prosecutors, who are not lawyers, attempting to prosecute serious fraud cases which really should be done by a State Prosecutor from the DPP’s Chambers.”
Like Bishop Alleyne, he recalled the request to have him and Hughes take over the prosecution from the police at no cost to the state but said that it “was never seriously considered”. He added that it was also evidence of an important fraud case not being treated with the “seriousness it deserved” by the relevant authorities. “[It] lends credence to my suspicion that the entire dilatory approach was a desired approach to achieve the desired result,” he said, while noting that there were other persons implicated in the fraud who were not even charged. “It will always rank in my mind as one of the most remarkably cavalier approaches to investigation and prosecution I have ever seen,” he added.
Rebuilding
The rebuilding of the church is progressing, albeit slowly. According to Bishop Alleyne, it was hoped that the structure would have been completed by now but the project was hindered by the unavailability of funds.
Although there have been several fundraising activities over the years, they were not enough to raise the $85 million needed to rebuild the church.
The bishop explained that the most important part of the rebuilding – the foundation has been completed. When Stabroek News visited the site recently, there was a complete steel structure in place and some concrete work had been started at the front.
It is more than half way complete.
Following the destruction of the church, church members set up base at a Camp Street location, where they have their weekly worship and other church-related activities.
