Signatures on cheques used by a mother who allegedly stole from the Gilbert Institute after-school programme did not match the co-signees writing, an expert told a court.

Yesterday was the third day in a Supreme Court trial of 49-year-old Lee Brown who allegedly stole almost $43,000 as one of the coordinators for the after-school programme. She faces eight charges from November 2003 to April 2005 that include one count of theft for failing to pay $30,893 into the programme's Bank of Bermuda account.

The second theft charge alleges through forging signatures on cheques, Brown stole another $12,034 and in six separate forgery charges that total $6,090 in cheques, Brown, from St. David's, is accused of forging signatures of her co-signees. She denies the charges.

On Monday the court heard that the alleged discrepancies were discovered by two teachers who planned to take over the programme and could not balance the books.

Keith Cassidy a handwriting expert analysed the signatures of co-signees, Christine A. Place, the administrative assistant at Gilbert Institute and Brenda J. Smith, the second coordinator of the after-school programme.

Using cheques known to have been written by the two women over more than a year-long period for both Mr. Cassidy told the court he found unique characteristics in their signatures.

When he compared them to the questionable cheque signatures, they did not match, Mr. Cassidy told court yesterday.

Both women had also been asked by Police to repeatedly write their signatures out for a Bermuda Police statement form and Mr. Cassidy yesterday, said some of those did resemble the questionable cheques.

However, he told court the circumstances were different from when the women wrote them on cheques and his samples were from a year-long period making the result more dependable.

The court also heard from Linda Franks, a former president of the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) who founded the after-school programme who told the court she knew of three instances were personal loans were approved from the after-school programme for the coordinators. Ms Franks, however, said these had been repaid.

Yesterday, Senior Crown counsel Paula Tyndale also presented statements from representatives at Warwick Academy, BELCO, Bermuda Gas Company and Bear Enterprises who all confirmed they had received after-school cheques from Lee Brown for her personal accounts.

Each of these cheques had allegedly been co-signed by Brown and another member of the PTA the court heard. Virginia Stephens, the PTA president at the time, confirmed to the court that she had contacted Police when Brown refused to attend meetings to explain differing bank statements.

The case continues today.