Accountant says Finnegan did not invest in land

The auctioneer Mr John Finnegan invested no money in a series of land deals involving the builders Brennan and McGowan, the tribunal has heard.

Mr Hugh Owens, the accountant who masterminded the complex offshore transactions on behalf of the three men, said he had "no knowledge" of any investment by Mr Finnegan in the deals.

In most of the transactions, Mr Owens said, he would have known if Mr Finnegan had invested money.

His evidence directly contradicts the version given by Mr Finnegan, who has said he invested in most of the eight deals in which he collaborated with Brennan and McGowan. Mr Finnegan received more than £660,000 in offshore payments arising from his involvement in six of the transactions.

Yesterday Mr Owens said he understood Mr Finnegan to be an equal partner with Brennan and McGowan in the deals. Mr Tom Brennan had told him that Mr Finnegan would be entitled to a one-third share of any profits.

Asked why Mr Finnegan received a payment from one transaction, Mr Owens said the auctioneer's involvement derived from "his ability to acquire the freehold [of the land] from his client". This was not easy, because land without freehold title was "useless" for development. This also contradicts Mr Finnegan's evidence.

Mr Owens said he first worked for Brennan and McGowan in the late 1960s. He had won a significant sum of money for another client in the High Court and "word spread around the builders that I was good about tax, in relation to property deals".

He agreed that he had "orchestrated" correspondence between different solicitors involved in the transactions with Brennan and McGowan and Mr Finnegan. The reason he did this was for timing; the deals would be delayed if the solicitors were left to write their own letters.

He had "no recollection" of signing Mr Finnegan's name on one letter, but he agreed that the signature - which Mr Finnegan says is not his - bore a "remarkable similarity" to his own.

In another letter he admitted to "having a bit of fun" with a solicitor by including a reference to Ascot, when the solicitor concerned had "never been to a racecourse in his life".

Earlier, the tribunal was told that Mr Finnegan's office had a "policy" of disposing of any documents relating to the auctioneer's offshore company, Foxtown Investments, or his dealings with the accountant Mr Des Traynor.

Ms Sandra O'Neill said the documents were either shredded or removed by sending them to the trustees of Mr Finnegan's offshore interests in the Channel Islands.

Ms O'Neill, who has been Mr Finnegan's personal assistant since 1978, said she was responsible for maintaining his personal files. She had only "vaguely" heard of Foxtown Investments.

If correspondence arrived for the company, she either gave it to "the guys" to bring to Jersey or she shredded it. Ms O'Neill said this was a policy she "inherited" and she had never queried it. She said she could not remember asking Mr Finnegan what to do with any documents relating to Mr Traynor or Foxtown.

Ms O'Neill agreed that she had withdrawn money for Mr Finnegan from the trustees, Credit Suisse Trust, by ringing up Credit Suisse in Guernsey. There were practically no written communications. Mr Justice Flood said he was "puzzled" by this. When he phoned his bank, he was asked for personal information, such as his mother's maiden name. What was the "open sesame" which allowed the witness to use an account that wasn't even in her name? "Amazingly, it was completely lax. They knew my voice, I had no password," Ms O'Neill explained.