A Canadian lawyer living in Bermuda was intimately involved in helping to submit his father?s fraudulent Bermuda status application in order to facilitate his own, the Crown alleged in the Supreme Court on Monday.

The allegation surfaced during the final summations in the complicated trial of Robert William Martyn, 42, of Harrington Sound Road, Smith?s, who is accused of conspiring to defraud the Minister of Home Affairs by agreeing with his father, William Robert Martyn, to assist in the submission of two false documents to the Department of Immigration.

The two documents in question are the birth certificate of the father and the marriage certificate of the defendant?s grandparents, which both falsely state that the grandfather was born in Bermuda in 1899 ? thereby validating the father?s and the son?s claims to status.

Despite opting against mounting a formal defence, Mr. Martyn?s legal team by contrast maintained he had no idea the two documents submitted as part of the father?s application contained falsehoods, and that as his grandfather died when he was only three years old, he had relied on his father?s assurance that the grandfather was born in Bermuda.

The crux of the defence was that it was a mistake made in good faith on the defendant?s part.

While Crown counsel Paula Tyndale admitted there was no direct evidence of an agreement between the defendant and his father to produce false documents, she did point to a significant amount of circumstantial evidence from which she urged the jury to draw ?inescapable inferences?.

One of the most powerful pieces of evidence which demonstrated that the defendant was involved in the scheme, she said, was the striking similarities between the father?s false birth certificate and the son?s legitimate one ? the latter document submitted as part of the son?s status application in September 2000, soon after his father had been confirmed as having status.

The format of the two documents is practically identical, Ms Tyndale argued, and included the same registration number, the same name of the physician who apparently delivered both the father and the son and the same signature of the deputy divisional registrar of a municipality in Canada where both were born.

This is despite the fact that the son was born in 1962 and the father was born in 1935 and, according to the testimony of Karen Ann Lefave, a representative from the Registrar General?s department in Thunder Bay, Ontario, the format for birth certificates issued in the 1930s was significantly different.

Furthermore, the legitimate birth certificate submitted by the defendant in his own application was a copy of a copy, Ms Tyndale continued, and was ?bizarrely? missing both the issue date and the official watermark.

When the defendant?s original birth certificate was seized by Police in early 2001 from the offices of Juris Law Chambers in Hamilton, the issue number on that document corresponded with the issue number on the father?s false birth certificate.

This was ?powerful evidence?, Ms Tyndale maintained, that the defendant?s birth certificate was used as ?the template? from which to forge the father?s false birth certificate and therefore implicated Mr. Martyn in the conspiracy.

The issue date was missing from the copy of the defendant?s birth certificate submitted in his status application, Ms Tyndale said, because it had been deliberately ?obliterated? so as to prevent a ?vigilant? Immigration officer detecting that the father?s false birth certificate had been forged from his son?s.

?It is a complete fallacy that he knew or believed his grandfather to have been born in Bermuda,? she concluded.

Presenting the case for the defence meanwhile, Victoria Pearman pointed out that none of the documents submitted as part of her client?s application have been deemed to be false and that the Crown was inviting the jury merely to engage in ?dangerous speculation?.

?There has not been a shred of evidence presented by the Crown which shows that Robert Martyn knew his grandfather was not born in Bermuda,? she said.

?Where is the evidence that the defendant actually ?obliterated? anything on his birth certifcate? There is no evidence in fact, that the defendant actually touched the copy of his birth certificate submitted, as it was handled by his attorney Peter Pearman at Conyers Dill & Pearman. If the Crown could produce a document to show that my client was fully aware that his grandfather was not born in Bermuda, then maybe they would have a case. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing to prove that he had any knowledge of this and it would nothing other than speculation to conclude that he did.?

Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves will begin his summation of the evidence this morning, with a verdict expected some time today.