A Canadian man charged with stealing more than $54,000 from his local employer admitted he kept company records and blank cheques two and a half years after his dismissal.

Colin Clive Andrew Cave faces Supreme Court charges of creating false financial records to disguise thefts from his local employer, Davison's of Bermuda.

Cave was responsible for the financial record of the company's two holding companies for eight months in 1995.

Cave said he was shocked and hurt by his dismissal on December 13, 1995, but was told by his employer, Norman Davison: "Bermuda is my Island, you have no rights here.'' Two days later Cave authorised a bank transfer of $25,000 to a private US account.

Cave also said he had retained company documents in order to help with any later consultation.

But he said a phone conversation with his former employer on January 6, 1996, "scared the heck'' out of him.

He told the nine-woman, three-man jury he had shown the documents to his American lawyers in 1995 and then stored them inside his closet until August 1996.

That same month, he was arrested in Florida and later extradited to Bermuda.

Crown counsel Peter Eccles also attacked Cave's depiction of the events.

Mr. Eccles argued Cave knew that keeping his former employer's financial documents violated the "fiduciary trust'' of a chartered accountant.

Mr. Eccles also suggested Cave had misled Mr. Davison by claiming to be a chartered accountant.

He said Cave's membership from the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants had been revoked around 1991 because Cave had neglected to pay dues.

"At no point did you ever admit to Norman Davison that you were not a chartered accountant, correct?'' asked Mr. Eccles.

"He never asked if I was a C.A.,'' said Cave, who said he had professed only to having a chartered accountant's background.