Charles Vaucrosson's financial controller tendered his resignation from the law firm after he became concerned about the propriety of several account transactions, a court heard yesterday.

The Crown alleges that Vaucrosson abused his position as the administrator of the late Percy Ball's estate and spent close to $400,000 of the money to pay off his own debts.

Vaucrosson lives on North Shore Road, Pembroke. He is accused of stealing more than $300,000 from the beneficiaries of Ball's trust fund. Ball was a journalist at the Bermuda Broadcasting Company.

Of the nine charges, the first eight relate to Vaucrosson acting for Ball's estate between an unknown time and February 1 and March 1, 1991.

It is alleged that he stole money -- ranging in amounts from $9,000 to $151,750 from the beneficiaries of the estate.

And the ninth charge alleges that he fraudulently disposed of the trust property -- some $393,782.58 -- and committed it to uses other than those authorised by the trust.

Steven Gibbons came to Bermuda from the United Kingdom in 1978 and worked for Vaucrosson's law firm between 1981 until he resigned in January 1991.

He was the firm's chief financial executive although he has no formal qualifications and has failed his accountancy exams on two occasions.

Gibbons said his qualifications came from experience although he did take the exam at Vaucrosson's prompting. He said he never found out whether he had passed because he told Vaucrosson that he had lost the results.

Despite his lack of formal qualifications he was in charge of Vaucrosson's financial records and currently holds a similar position at Telemaque and Associates.

Gibbons said he refused to sign a cheque for $50,452.10 when Vaucrosson asked him to because there were not enough funds in the account to support the transaction.

He said that the money was eventually taken from Ball's account and he became concerned.

"I would expect to see authorisation from whoever was in control of the Percy Ball account within (the law firm),'' he said. "This was in breach of trust accountancy rules because it was not authorised by trust account rules.'' Gibbons said he recorded this fact in a memorandum to his personal file.

"I never got an explanation about this account,'' he added.

Gibbons said he signed several cheques for varying amounts because his assistant at Vaucrosson's Michel Colmet, told him that the accused had told him (Colmet) that he had permission to take the money out of the Ball account.

Moreover, Gibbons said Colmet told him that Vaucrosson had said that he had permission to transfer Ball's trust funds into Amulion Investments on whose account the cheques were drawn.

However, during cross examination from defence attorney Mr. Frank Phipps, Gibbons admitted that he never mentioned, in any of his four Police statements, that Colmet had told him that Vaucrosson had authorised the transfer of Ball's trust money to Amulion Investments.

Amulion Investments is an investment firm that Vaucrosson owns.

Furthermore Gibbons said that although he believed that the cheques were improper, he still signed them.

The trial continues today.