A trusting secretary has told how she created a "cut-and-paste" letter for lawyers alleged to be a crucial part of an oil company chief executive's £7.2 million sterling (€11.22 million) investment fraud on the stock market.
The former personal assistant to former Alliance Resources chief, Mr John O'Brien, told a jury how scissors, Sellotape and a photocopier had successfully helped push a 1995 rights issue ahead. Ms Christine Allen told London's Southwark Crown Court that she was told by her Cork-born employer the document was merely a stop-gap to allow the share issue to go ahead.
But she also spoke of Mr O'Brien's fury at learning her "original" had later fallen into the hands of the company secretary and legal executive. Ms Allen told the jury: "He [O'Brien] was not very happy. He swore and said: `How the bloody hell am I going to deal with this?' He was not necessarily cross with me . . . but angry. He said don't worry and he would deal with it."
It is alleged that Mr O'Brien pulled off the investment coup after promising investors they would strike lucky with Alliance, promising a fortune in natural gas was to be exploited from proven underground reserves in Louisiana in the US.
The jury has heard how, despite the promise of initial tests, a flagship well could not produce enough gas to fill a cigarette lighter and how the Alliance lease to drill had been terminated by landlords in the US.
Ms Allen told the court how, before the potential strike, Alliance had been "lurching from [financial] crisis to crisis". But, by 1995 and the issue, the company's St James's offices had become "extremely busy".
She said advisers had needed confirmation for strictly governed listing particulars that Alliance still held a lease to drill as the date of the share issue on the London market approached. Mr O'Brien told her that officers in the US were due to fax through a new lease agreed with landlords on the land south of New Orleans. "We were worried we did not have the rights to be drilling," she said. "And the whole document, the listing particulars, would not be valid," she told the court.
She said Mr O'Brien told her of the problem and how she should prepare a letter to satisfy professional advisers, but he assured her a new document from the US was imminent.
"The signature came from another letter. I photocopied a letter, cut out the signature and stuck it on that one," she said. "If it is to be faxed, you photocopy it and send it off . . . that's what I did, on Mr O'Brien's instructions." She said the letter she created remained in a locked top drawer of her desk until it disappeared after leaving the desk unsecure one night. She admitted she had never seen a promised new drilling agreement arrive from the US.
Mr O'Brien (45), of Midleton, Co Cork, denies five charges of forgery, two offences of false accounting, and two offences under the Financial Services Act. It is alleged he falsely claimed to the stock market that Alliance held title over oilfield lands and that the company well, Valentine 14, was in a position to produce significant quantities of gas. The Serious Fraud Office alleges the company lease had been terminated and the well had been abandoned.
The trial continues.
