Police are continuing their investigation into an alleged theft from Harbour Gardens Limited, four months after sending a file on the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

The Royal Gazette revealed in December that detectives had finished their inquiries into the alleged theft of more than $100,000 and had sent the file to DPP Khamisi Tokunbo, who has to decide if the evidence is strong enough to bring about a prosecution.

Mr. Tokunbo's office refused to comment on the matter this week and referred enquiries to the Police. A Police spokesman said yesterday: “The Bermuda Police Service has been liaising with the DPP's office on this matter and the investigation is still ongoing.”

The company was set up in 1995 to convert part of the former Palm Reef Hotel in Paget into nine town houses, which sold for between $570,000 and $660,000. A number of townhouse owners, who are shareholders in the company, have taken out a civil suit against the Harbour Gardens' directors to get them to hand over the company unencumbered of debt with 999-year leases which were part of the sale agreement. The civil case has still not been settled.

The directors of the company are leading businessmen Arthur Jones, the owner and director of Coldwell Banker JW Realty, and Fraser Butterworth, the president and secretary of the Bermuda Institute of Architects.

The Royal Gazette reported in December that shareholders in the company said they had not been informed that the company's shareholding structure had been changed, according to filings at the Registrar of Companies. But the company later stated that this was an “administrative error” and that no change had taken place in the shareholding structure, except that in 1997 the non-voting shares were issued to purchasers of the units “in accordance with the by-laws of the company”.