THE BILLIONAIRE Barclay brothers destroyed evidence of text messages central to the High Court challenge taken by Belfast property developer Paddy McKillen, it was alleged yesterday.
The charge was made in the closing submission in the long-running case. Mr McKillen’s barrister, Philip Marshall, said some of the messages would have been “particularly revealing”.
Mr McKillen is suing the Barclays, financier Derek Quinlan and the National Asset Management Agency, which he contends wrongly sold debt secured on three luxury London hotels to the Barclays.
The alleged conspiracy, he argues, improperly denied him the opportunity to buy a controlling share of the hotels – the Connaught, the Berkeley and Claridges.
“It is plain that Sir David Barclay has deleted messages since proceedings commenced,” said Mr Marshall. “The consequences of this are particularly serious where [he] has chosen not to give evidence.”
Text messages from Mr Quinlan’s associate, Gerry Murphy, were revealed during discovery because they had been backed up to a computer.
“No searches of mobile phones were originally carried out,” said Mr Marshall, who said it “is quite clear” that the “key protagonists” regularly communicated by text.
Solicitors’ firm representing the Barclays, Weil Gotshal, did not search mobile telephone records in response to demands from Mr McKillen’s solicitors, Herbert Smith, he argued.
In January 2012, Weil Gotshal said Sir David Barclay and other relevant individuals “regularly deleted their text messages”, adding that Sir Frederick Barclay does not send business text messages.
In February Weil Gotshal wrote to say Sir David had a two-year-old mobile, though deleted messages could not be retrieved from it, while a Blackberry was not used for business texts.
The Barclay solicitors reported in February this year that data held on a laptop – including a back-up of mobile records – used by a senior Barclay executive, Richard Faber, had also been lost.
On April 12th, Herbert Smith requested Weil Gotshal to carry out another examination of the mobile records of Sir David’s son, Aidan, but this was refused four days later.
“It appeared that [Aidan] Barclay had deleted relevant text messages in the course of the proceedings, as a message sent by [Phil] Peters to Mr Barclay on December 5th, 2011 was not disclosed.
“In the circumstances the court is invited to infer that Aidan Barclay has indeed deleted relevant text messages in the course of the proceedings,” Mr Marshall said in his submission.
Outlining his submission to Mr Justice David Richards, he said the judge should draw inferences from the refusal of the Barclay brothers to give evidence. Sir David argues that he is too ill to attend, though Mr Marshall said the McKillen side believed that medical reports put forward were not soundly based.
Sir Frederick, he said, simply made it clear that he would not give evidence and would not obey a court order to do so, if one were made by the judge.
Mr Justice Richards, who interjected frequently yesterday, said other individuals had given evidence about many of the issues on which the Barclays would have been questioned.
He said if he believed Mr Quinlan’s evidence, there would be “no room” for drawing inferences about the Barclays’ non-attendance while, if he did not, then “it did not really matter” if they came.
The Barclay brothers deny they have full control of Mr Quinlan’s shares in Coroin, the hotels’ holding company, but Mr Marshall pointed out that Aidan Barclay had told the Leveson inquiry that they did control the company.
Urging the judge to view Mr Faber’s evidence with “extreme caution”, Mr Marshall said: “On any analysis [he] was willing to be disingenuous, or untruthful, when it suited him.”
