The woman, who is in her 80s, was giving evidence in the trial of Christopher Paul Byrne, who is accused of giving false and misleading statements to 12 clients, resulting in them losing a total of more than £2.7 million.
Mr Byrne, who ran the financial advisory company Lumiere Wealth, denies 21 counts of fraudulent inducement to invest money and failing to comply with a forthwith notice.
Yesterday, one of Mr Byrne’s alleged victims told the Royal Court that she had invested £100,000 into Providence, which the prosecution has described as a high-risk fund with a core business in debt factoring in Brazil.
When asked by Crown Advocate Simon Thomas what proportion of her investable wealth she had put into Providence the woman said: ‘Oh a very large amount. About 40 per cent.’
She added that she did not know where Providence was based.
Advocate Thomas asked: ‘What did you think the risk level of Providence was?’
‘Well I just thought it was the same as all the others after telling Mr Byrne that I’ve got to have low risk investments,’ she replied.
The woman said she only learned the details of the Providence scheme after her daughter, who is a barrister, read through her investment papers.
‘I gave her several papers to look at and she came across the word “factoring”,’ the woman said.
‘I had never heard that word before. I had to ask her what it meant.’
The woman added that she and her daughter were ‘very horrified’ after learning what type of fund Providence was and said if she had known beforehand she would not have invested in it.
During cross-examination, Advocate Olaf Blakely, defending, said: ‘Mr Byrne will say that when he was discussing Providence with you he did go into the detail about factoring.’
‘Oh no, no, no,’ the woman said. ‘He didn’t.’
‘He will say that he showed you a video on his iPad.’
‘No, no,’ she replied.
Advocate Blakely asked the woman if her recollection of the events was ‘confused’.
‘Your recollection is not accurate because you know certain things after the event,’ he said.
‘My recollection is not bad, you know,’ the woman responded.
Advocate Blakely asked the woman if Mr Byrne had put her under any pressure to make investments.
‘No he didn’t,’ she replied.
Commissioner Sir John Saunders was sitting with Jurats Charles Blampied and Robert Christensen.
The trial, which is expected to last six weeks, continues.
