Anglo trial jury told to acquit if reasonable doubt exists

The jury in the trial of four former bankers accused of conspiracy to defraud in 2008 is expected to begin deliberating later on Tuesday.

Continuing his charge to the jury on Tuesday Judge Martin Nolan told the jurors that if they have any reasonable doubt about any aspect of the State's case they must acquit the four men.

Four former executives from Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Life & Permanent (ILP) are alleged to have conspired to mislead investors about the true health of Anglo.

Closing speeches have now ended in what is understood to be the longest running trial in Irish legal history. Peter Fitzpatrick (63) of Convent Lane, Portmarnock, Dublin, Denis Casey (56), from Raheny, Dublin, John Bowe (52) from Glasnevin, Dublin and Willie McAteer (65) of Greenrath, Tipperary Town, Co. Tipperary have all pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to conspiring together and with others to mislead investors by setting up a €7.2 billion circular transaction scheme between March 1st and September 30th, 2008 to bolster Anglo's balance sheet.

Circular

The prosecution case is that the four men were involved in a setting up a scheme of circular €1 billion transactions where Anglo lent money to ILP and ILP sent the money back, via their assurance firm Irish Life Assurance, to Anglo.

The scheme was designed so that the deposits coming from the assurance company could be treated as customer deposits and non inter-bank loans. The former are considered a better measure of a bank’s strength than the latter. The €7.2 billion deposit was later accounted for in Anglo’s preliminary results on December 3rd 2008 as part of Anglo’s customer deposits figure.

The prosecution say that the entire objective of the scheme was to mislead the public reading Anglo’s accounts by artificially inflating the customer deposits number from €44 billion to €51 billion, a difference of 16 per cent.

On day 75 of the trial Judge Martin Nolan told the jurors: “Before you can convict these four men of anything you must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the scheme and the way it was accounted for accounted for...is a dishonest scheme”.

He told them that if they cannot be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that this was a dishonest scheme they have to acquit all four.

Scheme

He said once satisfied that the scheme was dishonest they must be satisfied that the four defendants either authorised or were involved in the execution of the scheme and, at the time, they intended that the €7.2 billion would be accounted for as it was in Anglo’s balance sheet.

He told them that he was loath to bring the role of the financial regulator into the case as his role had no relevance to the charges. He said the prosecution had brought an application to the court to stop the regulator being mentioned in the case and he said he agreed but he said the jury needed to hear the context in which the deals took place.

Judge Nolan is expected to finish his charge and to send the jury out to begin deliberating later today.