VARIOUS MEETINGS and conversations between the late Veronica Guerin and garage owner Mr John Traynor were referred to in two affidavits by him which were opened in the High Court yesterday.
Mr Traynor said he owned Church Motors, Church Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin, and Naas Auto Shop, Naas, Co Kildare. He formerly owned the Jetfoil public house on the Dublin quays before selling it on a compulsory purchase order to the Port and Docks Board. He received £180,000 for the pub in 1989.
He had a number of convictions here and in the UK. He sustained his first conviction when aged, nine, for housebreaking. Later, he received seven or eight convictions for housebreaking and assault.
On his last conviction here in 1977, he got a five year sentence for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life. He served 2 1/2 years of a seven year sentence in the UK for receiving stolen bonds.
Mr Traynor said he had never been convicted, charged or questioned by any police officer in any jurisdiction about the sale, supply or importation of drugs.
On release from prison in the UK he returned to Ireland and traded in cars with money received from the sale of the pub. Since his return, he had expanded his business. He resided in Templeogue with his wife and four children.
Mr Traynor said about two weeks before June 14th (when he made his first affidavit) Ms Guerin rang him to arrange a meeting and they met at the Greyhound Bar in Harold's Cross. He had met her on a number of previous occasions relating to articles she wished to write.
During the meeting Ms Guerin said she had received from her editor an anonymous Garda report about him from J District, a copy of his previous convictions and a photograph from a Garda file. He was told by her that a paragraph in the report linked him with two named persons believed by gardai to be the main heroin dealers in Dublin.
He said the confidential report was never produced to him or offered to him. It was not forwarded to him by Ms Guerin. She said her editor was insisting she publish a story about his connection with these two other people. He said he had never heard of the two people mentioned.
Mr Traynor said he had never been involved in sale, supply or importation of illegal drugs, nor had he ever been question by gardai or any other police or Customs officers in relation to the sale, supply or importation of illegal narcotics.
In a second affidavit, dated June 18th, Mr Traynor said he made application for interim relief on June 14th because on the previous day Ms Guerin had contacted him by phone and informed him a publication highly defamatory of him would be written by her and published on June 16th.
For approximately the past 20 months he had been contacted by Ms Guerin at frequent but irregular intervals. The contacts were followed almost immediately by a meeting in a place of her choosing. He had no choice about attending because, if he demurred or suggested postponement, she informed him it was in his best interest to attend, saying she was contemplating publication about him.
The first meeting was in a coffee shop in Montague Lane, between Camden Street and Harcourt Street, Dublin. She astonished him by telling him details of a social outing - described by her as an "escapade" - he had with a friend of his who happened to be a member of the Garda. She indicated she was going to publish a story about this and about him.
She engaged him in conversation about the romantic life of Martin Cahill, about whom "she, knew a great deal more than I did". She discussed various crimes, some of which he had read about and some which appeared fictitious or imaginary. She suggested he was involved in some of these, although the suggestion seemed speculative. He knew nothing whatsoever about the matters she mentioned.
Mr Traynor said that at this first meeting Ms Guerin suggested he had been instrumental, in returning to a garda a file in connection with a criminal prosecution which had gone missing or been stolen. She asked him to give her a copy of the file.
About a month later Ms Guerin phoned him again. She said she was going to do a story on him, but first wanted to work on the file. He refused to discuss this or any topic and terminated the conversation. She immediately contacted him again, berating him in hysterical terms for his "non cooperation" and shouting that she wanted to do a story on him.
On the next day Ms Guerin rang and cajoled him with threats into meeting her in a Leeson Street hotel. At this stage the threats relating to him centred on what she described as the "escapade" with the gardai. She appeared to be threatening him with association of some sort with the "missing file". Later, the nature of her threats changed and became specifically related to drugs.
At the hotel meeting Ms Guerin flung down in front of him what she claimed was an original DPP file in relation to a criminal case. She indicated she had the original and did not need a "f---ing copy". She indicated disappointment with the contents of the file, wondering what was "so important".
He said he knew nothing about the case, the subject of the file. He did not think Ms Guerin accepted that. The case related to the circumstances surrounding the death of a priest in the midlands.
Over the next few days Ms Guerin contacted him on numerous occasions. She told him the gardai had given her his phone number. He did not find that credible. He did not know how she came to contact him.
However, Mr Traynor added, the landlord of his premises at Church Avenue, Rathmines, was her uncle and that gentleman's son was a person with whom he was acquainted due to their, shared interest in motor racing at Mondello. It was possible she became aware of him through either of those people or in some other way.
Several months later they met in Fans Chinese restaurant on Dame Street. Ms Guerin was extremely friendly and appeared to have lost interest completely in the file about which they had had confrontation. She was in reminiscent mood. She told him about cases she had been involved with, her dealing with police officers, who, she said, gave her information about criminals who were police informants.
Mr Traynor said Ms Guerin seemed completely fascinated and obsessed by crime and police work. She talked in terms of "crims" and "feds". She freely mentioned her contacts with both of these groups.
At times, she would appear, or appeared, to become convinced he would tell her details of criminal offences of which in reality he was completely ignorant. She was not suggesting he was guilty of, or in any way involved in, the offences, but merely that he could, if he wished, find out the true facts and communicate them to her.
In recent times Ms Guerin became convinced that the much publicised murder of a Co Wicklow publican had been a contract killing. She insisted to him with threats that he could find out who had done this and tell her. He knew nothing about this and lacked the means to begin making inquiries about it. He would imagine she was in a far better position to make inquiries, either from police or criminal sources.
She plainly did not accept his denial and again threatened to expose him in some form of story, although at the time it was unclear what sort of story she proposed.
Mr Traynor said apart from occasions such as that described or when she was demanding something from him, and apart from her threats to expose him the tone of their meetings was almost, always friendly.
They sometimes had meals together. Neither of them ever drank alcohol at the meetings. In his case this was due to his belief that she was a serious threat to him even when ostensibly friendly, and at times she appeared to him to be irrational. She told him on occasions the only thing she lived for was a good story, but on other occasions she had to print stories because of extreme pressure from her editor, Mr Aengus Fanning.
She clearly had astonishing sources of information. She was able to tell him matters involving himself such as his social connections with his friend in the Garda Siochana and a minor dispute he had about mooring a boat.
Mr Traynor said that in the past two months his contact with Ms Guerin became much more frequent, much more intense and expressly and overtly threatening. He was unable to say precisely what this was.
However, before the start of this phase, an event occurred which seemed to annoy Ms Guerin. He had an altercation with a well known businessman in Harcourt Street which led to allegations of assault. He was invited to call to Harcourt Square Garda station to make a statement about the matter. He did attend, but declined to comment.
Mr Traynor said some time later he was contacted by Ms Guerin, who informed him there would be no charges and that the allegations had been withdrawn.
She said that he "owed her one".
Shortly afterwards Ms Guerin sought his assistance in arranging an interview with Gordon Smith. Mr Smith, whose story was subsequently written by Ms Guerin, was a person who was kidnapped in the Republic by the UVF and Ms Guerin wished to do a story about this.
She invited him (Mr Traynor) to help her arrange this because he was acquainted with Mr Smith's father. She interviewed Mr Smith at the La Touche Club, Earlsfort Terrace, and in her presence and at her request he paid Mr Smith £100. Ms Guerin was not willing to pay him because she insisted that, on principle, she never paid for stories.
Mr Traynor said a short time later Ms Guerin contacted him once again in her hysterical mode. She alleged to him she had been arrested and questioned by two Garda superintendents on the basis that she was suspected of "perverting the course of justice" in relation to the matter of the alleged assault. He had no idea whether this was true or not.
Ms Guerin had told him on a previous occasion she had been arrested under Section 30 and alleged on this occasion she had been arrested under Section 4.
On June 3rd last, without any intervening contact, Ms Guerin arranged to meet him and told him he was going to be the centre of a major story by her in the Sunday Independent. This story, he understood from her, had two quite separate limbs.
The first was that he was involved with - "connected with/mixed up with" - two men called Mr Murphy and Mr Mullins who were major Dublin heroin dealers. The second limb related to three men from Liverpool or the Liverpool area whom she said had been arrested in Dublin and whom she claimed had been on their way to deliver drugs to him.
Both of these stories were completely untrue. He knew nothing whatsoever about any of the matters mentioned. He was not now nor ever had been directly or indirectly involved in the purchase or any dealings in drugs or the proceeds of same.
Mr Traynor said he protested in these terms to Ms Guerin. She told him she was surprised, because no one, either guards or criminals, had ever alleged he was involved in what she termed as "heavy drugs".
She told him her editor had received anonymously, "in an envelope", a Garda report from J District. She said: "You're just in a short paragraph thrown in the middle." She appeared to accept his denial of any involvement because she ended by saying: "I'll have to look further into it. I don't believe you are involved in it."
Mr Traynor said he asked her when she would have looked further into it and she said she would have done so the next day.
At the meeting the next day Ms Guerin saw him in the La Touche Club after a phone call in the afternoon. She said: "I think you are going into the paper." He asked her why she would do that when she knew it wasn't true. She said: "My editor is wondering what's going on between you and me when I am not using your name, when I am using others."
She told him that the two men: she had mentioned were going to be named by Deputy Tony Gregory in the Dail and that he might be so named as well. He continued to protest his innocence and she said: "I'll have to see."
He asked her what the story was about the men from Liverpool and she said that she had found out that was not true. She said: "When they came, they realised the stuff was unsaleable. They were just going to take it back."
He asked Ms Guerin with great, sincerity for the sources of her information. She said her source was two "crims" and was confidential. This was a long and fraught meeting between Ms Guerin and himself and in the course of it she unequivocally accepted, that the story she proposed to print was not true.
She said: "I know you're not involved in heroin, but I have to print it." He asked her why. She replied: "It's your lifestyle, you have a boat worth a quarter of a million pounds and a string of race cars in Mondello."
Mr Traynor said he had no idea where Ms Guerin got this information. The facts of the matter were that he had a half share in a motor boat worth £16,000 and he owned three cars used for touring car racing at Mondello. These were respectively valued at £7,000, £3,000 and £1,500. He told her this.
He asked her if she regarded these things as evidence of involvement with drugs and why she didn't investigate everyone in Mondello. She said that the possession of cars by other persons was explicable because "they have garages". He pointed out to her that he had two garages.
He told Ms Guerin on this occasion in quite emotional terms about the effect this story would have on him and his family. He said it would destroy his wife and children, force him to move them to different schools, probably destroy his businesses and put him at risk of his life from vigilante types.
Mrs Guerin acknowledged all of these consequences. She said: "I hate my job." She said she had told her editor that it would put him in danger, but that he was unimpressed. She said in express terms and repeatedly that her editor was making her "do this".
In a pattern which was to become very familiar, Ms Guerin was not on this occasion 100 per cent certain that the story would appear and stated that she would ring him the next day. The next day - Wednesday, June 5th last - she rang him and arranged to meet him at the Greyhound Bar. She told him that she was not doing the story she had previously planned. "Instead, I am going to put you down as a hash dealer. I met two crims who told me you sell hash."
He said that if she published this story he would sue her and she could bring such witnesses to court. She said: "I am not too sure they would go to court." She then said she knew someone to whom he had admitted selling "hash". When pressed, she described the person to whom this admission was allegedly made as being "the Provisional IRA".
She claimed that this organisation had made a tape of him making such an admission. When he denied this story to her she again said that she wasn't 100 per cent certain that they would go ahead and she would let him know the next day. He told her that these allegations were completely destructive to him and his family and likely to expose him to a risk of being murdered.
He told her he would go to court to stop the stories.
The following day she rang him and told him: "We are doing the story." There was no further conversation. He arranged to meet his solicitor at 9.30 a.m. the following morning, Friday June 7th.
On June 7th, at about 9:20 a.m., Ms Guerin telephoned him from her mobile telephone as he was driving down Terenure Road to see his solicitor. She said she had discussed the matter with editor the previous night. She said she had told him that she could not stand up in court, put her hand on her heart and say that Mr Traynor dealt in drugs. Therefore, she said, the paper would not cover the story. He thereupon, perhaps foolishly, cancelled his appointment with his solicitor.
On Monday, June 10th, Ms Guerin phoned him in the afternoon. She said she was coming back from Limerick, which he took to be a reference to Adare, where two gardai had been shot the previous Friday. She said she wanted to meet him the next day.
She rang the next morning and arranged to pick him up at about 1 p.m. at a business premises known as "Mr Gearbox" on Richmond Road. She picked him up there in her car and drove him to the La Touche. In the course of this meeting she said: "I think I will have to run the story this week." She then said: "I hear now you might be selling `E'."
This was a reference to the drug ecstasy. This allegation was completely new and was equally false. He asked her ironically what else would she hear and she said: "I'm not sure about the `E', but I do know about the hash from these two crims."
He insisted upon the falsity of this story and begged her, for the reasons already given, not to publish it. She maintained it was still not certain that it would be published and said she would let him know. She told him she was doing a big story on the Provos, adding: "I think you are going to have to go in."
She made an appointment to meet him the following morning at the Mercantile Hotel, Dame Street. She told him they were going to do the story. Their meeting that day was a very long one. She told him she thought they were going to do the story. He begged her with all the power of his command not to do so, pointing out that it would destroy his family and his businesses and perhaps lead directly to his death."
She acknowledged that all of this was true and also expressly and repeatedly acknowledged that the story was false.
Late on Thursday, June 13th, she telephoned him and told him the story was definitely going in. There was no further conversation.
The defendants proposed to publish a story about him which was false and which, according to Ms Guerin, they knew to be false. There was no prospect that they could prove it to be true, because it was not true and because Ms Guerin's alleged information came from anonymous criminals whom even she doubted would be available to attend court.
On the other hand, this story would be absolutely destructive of him and his family and could well lead to his death. In this connection he referred to an article published by Ms Guerin on June 16th last in which she appeared to acknowledge that to be described as a drug dealer exposed a person to the risk of death.
He knew nothing of the motivation of Independent Newspapers and Mr Fanning except insofar as Ms Guerin had commented on this. He said, however, that Ms Guerin was obsessed with crime, criminals and policemen and was very confident she held a very powerful position.