The trial against Anglo Irish Bank official Bernard Daly was "a travesty" and the Court of Appeal should restore his good reputation, counsel for the former company secretary said on Wednesday.
Sean Guerin SC said his client was a man of “unblemished good character” whose only interest in life was his work and his charitable work for St Vincent de Paul.
He was imprisoned “because and only because he suffered an unfair trial”, that “gradually and perceptibly became more unfair” as it proceeded.
“I ask the court to give effect to the requirement for a fair trial by ruling that what happened was a travesty, he simply didn’t get a fair crack of the whip,” Mr Guerin said. “I ask this court to step in and restore his position of good character and record that existed before July 31st.”
Daly, and Tiarnan O'Mahoney, former chief operations officer at Anglo, were jailed in July for conspiracy to falsify bank records and defraud the Revenue Commissioners.
Daly (67), of Collins Avenue West, Whitehall, Dublin was sentenced to two years in prison by Judge McCartan, at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
O’Mahoney (56) of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, was sentenced to three years in prison.
The men are appealing their convictions and the length of their sentences.
Mr Guerin told the court the judge’s charge to the jury, was “nothing resembling a fair charge at the end of a lengthy trial”.
He said disputed evidence was presented as fact by the judge, he failed to martial the evidence and “fell into error” in his account of what the evidence was. His “erroneous account of evidence” undermined the defence case, Mr Guerin said.
He also said in giving the “accomplice warning” to the jury, the judge should have told them it “may be dangerous” to convict someone on the evidence of an accomplice without corroborating evidence, but instead the judge told them they had to use caution about accepting accomplice evidence.
On Wednesday evening, Dominic McGinn SC, for the prosecution, began his submissions to the three appeal judges; Mr Justice George Birmingham, Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and Mr Justice John Edwards.
He defended criticism surrounding the statutory time limits for the offences and changes to the indictment when the trial began, including the change of dates on conspiracy charges.
He said it became clear that a conspiracy was afoot from a much earlier stage than first thought and so the dates needed to be changed.
Mr McGinn said there had been an ongoing conspiracy involving all three bank officials around the accounts of John Peter O’Toole.
Daly was not included in another offence related to concealment of six other accounts, and there was also the separate offence of omitting the O’Toole account from a list to be provided to Revenue in November 2003. He said they were “concurrent” conspiracies.
“These matters were correctly joined in the same indictment and essentially founded on the same evidence,” he said.
The appeal continues.
