More than two years after the US$2 million insurance fraud allegedly committed on the Sacred Heart Church was adjourned indefinitely, it was reopened on December 15 last year with the testimony of Gregory Yeadon, an insurance loss adjuster based in Barbados.
However, Stabroek News was reliably informed Yeadon’s testimony was subsequently discarded after the magistrate found that his statement was not present in the police file.
The case is scheduled to continue on February 9 before Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.
The Catholic Standard in an article published on January 20 said that Bishop Francis Alleyne and retired Bishop Benedict Singh were summoned to court on January 13 to give evidence. However when they arrived they were told that the matter had been adjourned to the following Monday. On turning up on that day, the article said, the magistrate apologized to them as they were summoned in error since they had already given evidence in the matter.
The defendant Fred Sukhdeo was not present and no attorney entered an appearance on his behalf. According to the article, Sukhdeo’s bail has been escheated and both attorneys who represented him in the early stages of the matter are no longer on the case; Winston Murray having died and Sanjeev Datadin now working abroad.
Sukhdeo is accused of being the mastermind behind the insurance scam committed on the church, which was destroyed by fire on Christmas Day, 2004. It is 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. Sukhdeo is also accused of trying to obtain the said sum of money by virtue of a forged fire and perils claim form.
According to the facts of the case, GuyFlag submitted a bogus claim for payment to its reinsurance agent AON Re and Sukhdeo, who was the head of the sister operation, the National Cooperative Credit Union Limited, was presented as a representative of the church dealing with the fire. It was Yeadon who allegedly brought the scam to light. Sukhdeo was arrested on November 17, 2005 and placed on $50,000 station bail.
Following further police investigations he was charged with forgery and endeavouring to obtain upon a forged document in March 2006 and released on $75,000 bail.
Over the years, the case had been hit by many adjournments causing a delay in its progression.
In November 2009, the then prosecutor Shellon Daniels requested that the matter be put down sine die (indefinitely) as she was making efforts to get Yeadon to bring the original document. The request was later granted by the magistrate.
Two lawyers, Nigel Hughes and Gino Persaud, had applied to the Director of Public Prosecution to prosecute the case without success.
