Credibility of September 25th document comes into question

Search for proof: The tribunal learned about all these matters after it started inquiries into the Doncaster issue in January 2004.

Its correspondence with Vaughan led to an eventual meeting in London on September 9th, 2003 between Vaughan and barristers for the tribunal.

Documents since discovered by the tribunal indicate that, on the night prior to his being interviewed in London, Vaughan spoke on the telephone with Denis O'Brien. Furthermore, it seems there were ongoing contacts between Vaughan and O'Brien's accountant, Ryall, concerning Vaughan's dealings with the tribunal.

The High Court was told that in a letter to William Fry from Vaughan dated September 14th, 2004, three days after the London meeting Vaughan wrote: "Your client, Denis O'Brien, spoke to me personally on the telephone prior to my attending before the tribunal in London and said that any bill should be sent to him, together with that of Duncan Needham my solicitor." In fact the tribunal had offered to meet Vaughan's costs.

The tribunal told the court that, during a public hearing in September 15th, 2004, counsel for O'Brien, Eoin McGonigal SC, complained to the tribunal that "nobody was alerted" beforehand to the London meeting with Vaughan. The tribunal told the court that O'Brien was wholly aware of the tribunal's arrangement to meet Vaughan and that this was known to O'Brien's advisers.

It said that, on July 24th, 2004, Vaughan wrote, by fax only, to Ryall, enclosing a letter from the tribunal together with a copy of Vaughan's letter to his solicitor, Needham.

In August, Vaughan wrote three times, by fax only, to Ryall bringing him up to date on his dealings with the tribunal. On August 10th he told Ryall: "Just so there is no misunderstanding between us, under no circumstances will I appear either formally or informally before the tribunal or its officers until such time as we have discussed the purpose of my appearing before the tribunal in greater detail."

He also wrote: "This is not because I would in any way want to mislead or confuse the tribunal but, as we have discussed on several occasions previously, my contemporaneous knowledge of the various people involved in the acquisition of [ the Cheadle site], the land at Mansfield, and the shares in DRFC, is vastly different from my current knowledge of those people and their reasons obtained from a variety of different sources."

In the last fax, Vaughan sought Ryall's comments on his (Vaughan's) proposed letter to the tribunal.

In correspondence the tribunal asked Vaughan what he meant when he said his contemporaneous knowledge of the property transactions was vastly different to what it is now. He said the question was impossible to answer.

The tribunal also said to the court that, to date, O'Brien had failed to provide a detailed explanation of his relationship with Vaughan and Kevin Phelan and, "in particular, whether Vaughan continues to act as solicitor on his behalf".

Gerard Maloney is a solicitor acting for the Persona consortium who has spent a lot of time in recent years monitoring the tribunal. Persona is seeking to sue the State over the second mobile phone licence competition, in which it came second. In April and May 2003, Maloney told the tribunal of contacts he'd had with Weaver.

On May 22nd, 2003, Vaughan received another unexpected visit from Weaver and again took a note.

"He told me that a Mr Maloney, a businessman from Dublin who had some involvement in a telephone company called Persona, had been to see Reg Ashworth, the solicitor who acted on behalf of Richardson and the previous owners of DRFC, asking him for information about the sale of the club. Mark Weaver was not forthcoming about what information they wanted.

"Maloney had spoken to him, I think, on two occasions, once I think with Reg Ashworth and once separately.

"They told him that they wanted him to appear at the tribunal at Dublin. Reg Ashworth had advised him not to go."

Vaughan listed some points raised by Weaver, including: "Why did Paul May get paid £120,000 (€172,385) out of the Doncaster Rovers transaction? I expressed considerable surprise at this comment as to my knowledge Paul May's complaint against the whole DRFC transaction was that he was never paid any money that he was owed for his involvement.

"He knew that I had taken Michael Lowry to Leicester and told me that the reason that the sale price of DRFC had gone up was so that Michael Lowry could be paid money out of the deal. Again I passed no comment but, if this had happened, Reg Ashworth/Richardson would have known and been party to the transfer of funds on completion from Richardson to Michael Lowry. (I had privately thought that the price increase reflected some sort of benefit paid by Richardson to Kevin Phelan).

"His parting comments to me were that Mr Maloney had also said to him that he would like to buy from him copies of various documents that he had got relating to DRFC which they thought would be able to help them in some court action that Persona had brought against the Irish Government."

On December 9th, 2003, Richardson and Weaver turned up unexpectedly at Dublin Castle and asked to see the tribunal barristers. A 15-minute meeting ensued during which a note was taken. Richardson claimed he had videos of conversations with Phelan and Vaughan which "record Kevin Phelan and Christopher Vaughan stating that money had been given to Michael Lowry".

Subsequent correspondence with the two men did not lead to the production of any of these alleged recordings. When the tribunal was notified by O'Connor's solicitor that a letter it had sent to the two Englishmen had been faxed on to O'Connor, it ceased communications with Richardson and Weaver.

Counsel for O'Brien Eoin McGonigal SC, pointed out in the High Court that Richardson and Weaver keep coming in and out of the Doncaster story, making serious allegations against people but not making themselves available to give evidence on oath to the tribunal or to be cross-examined by parties against whom they make their allegations.

A key argument made by McGonigal on behalf of O'Brien is that the tribunal, if it goes into public hearings on the Doncaster issue, will not be able to "prove" the September 25th letter. In other words, because Vaughan is not coming to give evidence, and because Lowry says he never saw the letter at the time, there is no one to say, in the witness box, that it is an authentic letter. Collard's attendance of her meeting with O'Connor is a record of an alleged statement by O'Connor which O'Connor will say in evidence is incorrect. The tribunal can only make findings on the basis of evidence presented in public hearings but, asked McGonigal, where is the evidence? There is none, he said.

He also said correspondence from Kevin Phelan to the tribunal made it apparent that Phelan believed Lowry had no involvement in the Doncaster deal. Aidan Phelan has said he never dealt with Lowry in relation to Doncaster.

Recently, Lowry's solicitors have begun to question the credibility of the September 25th letter. In February of this year, Lowry's solicitor wrote to the tribunal stating that they had now established that Lowry's appointment at the Bupa facility was on September 24th, 1998. Furthermore, Lowry's flight tickets had been located, showing he'd flown from Dublin to Birmingham on a 6pm flight on the 23rd. The letter dated September 25th states that Vaughan had met Lowry on the 24th and 25th and is apparently written on the date Lowry visited the Bupa facility. In other words, the dates may not match up.

"Given the time frame of Mr Lowry's visit as now established, this letter is highly questionable."

The solicitor, Michael Kelly of Kelly Noone, then pointed out that, in his meeting with the tribunal in London in September 2004, Vaughan had said that, in fact, he had not met Phelan and Lowry in a hotel, as stated earlier, but had met them in his office.

"Yes. Absolutely. They came to my office late one afternoon. . . They came to my office in office hours."

Atranscript of the meeting records Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, asking: "Let us be precise. It was within office hours?"

"It was before 6pm, for whatever reason," Vaughan replied.

Noone said it had now been shown that Lowry had not left Dublin by 6pm. McGonigal told the High Court that there was a question now as to the credibility of the September 25th letter.