A woman charged with stealing almost half a million dollars from her elderly grandmother was yesterday accused of telling the jury at her Supreme Court trial a “pack of lies”.Lorraine Smith, 46, of Lusher Hill, Warwick, was asked by Crown counsel Garrett Byrne why she refused to swear on the Bible before giving her evidence.“I don’t swear on the Bible,” replied Ms Smith, who told the court she was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which she attended every week.Mr Byrne asked: “Is it because you were about to tell the jury a pack of lies?”Ms Smith, who denies multiple theft charges and one count of senior abuse by financial exploitation, along with her co-accused sister Audra-Ann Bean, said: “No.”When defence lawyer Larry Mussenden asked her about the same issue, she added: “I just feel that I shouldn’t be swearing on the Bible.”Mr Byrne, cross-examining Ms Smith, suggested she told the jury “lie after lie after lie” when answering questions from Mr Mussenden.“Are you going to start telling the truth now?” he asked. “I have been,” responded Ms Smith.The prosecution alleges that Ms Smith and Ms Bean, 44, of Lusher Lane East, Warwick, deceived their 87-year-old grandmother Lenice Tucker into adding them as signatories to her bank accounts just days after her 91-year-old sister Lesseline died.Lesseline, who passed away on July 15, 2010, left $540,000 in five bank accounts to which Ms Tucker, of Middle Road, Southampton, was a co-signatory.The trial of the two sisters has heard they opened joint accounts with their grandmother at HSBC and Butterfield banks on July 20 and 21, 2010.On October 8, 2010, they transferred funds into bank accounts in their names only. Ms Smith says they did so on the advice of lawyer Myron Simmons to protect their grandmother’s money from their drug-using father Ivan Bean and maintenance man Alvin (Kelly) Jones.Mr Byrne asked Ms Smith for the date of Lesseline’s funeral. She said she thought it was July 22.The prosecutor said: “So, if it was on the 22nd, you and your sister decided it would be appropriate to take Lenice Tucker not only to one bank but to two banks to discuss an awful lot of money only a day or two before her sister’s funeral?”Ms Smith said: “I didn’t take her.”Mr Byrne asked her if her grandmother and Lesseline, who lived together, were close and she agreed they were. He asked how upset she thought Ms Tucker was on the visits to the bank.Ms Smith said the senior “could have been a bit upset” about her sister.Mr Byrne said: “Can you explain to the jury whether you took into consideration how upset your grandmother was when you went to the bank.”Ms Smith said: “No, I did not, at either bank.”Mr Byrne put it to the defendant: “Those transfers on October 8 were completely dishonest, deliberate and cruel. That’s what they were.”Ms Smith replied: “No, they were not.”The prosecutor asked: “You don’t feel any remorse?” She responded: “We were just trying to help.”Later, she denied “inventing” her father’s drug use at the time of the opening of the bank accounts on October 8 to excuse her behaviour.Mr Byrne said she’d made very serious allegations about Mr Bean and Mr Jones and asked why, if she thought the men were attempting to make unauthorised withdrawals from Ms Tucker’s bank account, she didn’t go to police.“I didn’t think of it,” the defendant replied.During her evidence-in-chief, Ms Smith was asked by Mr Mussenden to explain a number of withdrawals from the bank.She broke down in tears in relation to one amount of $6,000, as she recalled how her half-sister, Avril Paul II, was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 28.Ms Smith told the court that Ms Paul asked her to ask Ms Tucker if she could borrow money to buy a car, as she was too weak to ride her bike after chemotherapy and radiation.Ms Smith said Ms Tucker agreed and the $6,000 was deposited in Ms Paul’s bank account.In response to questions from Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves, she said the loan had not yet been paid back. She said Ms Paul planned to start repayments in January 2011 “but that’s when the accounts were frozen”.Mr Greaves asked: “She’s not Lenice’s granddaughter, is she?”Ms Smith agreed she wasn’t. She said Ms Paul had the same mother and a different father to her and Ms Bean.The case continues.