The Court of Crial Appeal has refused an application by a former senior tax official to be allowed to alter his plea of guilty to involvement in an attempt to defraud the Revenue Commissioners of £3.8 million through a forged VAT repayment claim.
Mr Brendan Murphy, who was in court yesterday, has been released after serving two years and nine months in prison. He was jailed for seven years in September 1999 for his role in the attempted fraud, with the last three years suspended.
Mr Murphy was a principal officer in the Collector General's Limerick offices before his arrest in 1997 and was the manager of the State's entire VAT repayment system at the time of the attempted fraud. The Criminal Assets Bureau told the trial court Mr Murphy would have collected £2 million for his part.
When jailing him, Judge Kevin Haugh said in the Circuit Court he was satisfied Mr Murphy had perpetrated a gross breach of privilege as a trusted employee in a very substantial fraud which could only have been carried out by a person with deep inside knowledge of the operations of the Revenue.
He imposed a seven-year sentence of which he suspended the final three years, on condition Mr Murphy enter a bond to keep the peace.
Yesterday Mr Martin Giblin SC, for Mr Murphy, argued that the Circuit Court judge was wrong in not permitting Mr Murphy to alter his guilty plea. He submitted the trial judge had given too much weight to medical reports from two doctors, including from Dr Charles Smith, clinical director of the Central Mental Hospital, while not giving sufficient weight to the testimony of a consultant psychiatrist, Dr Brian McCaffrey, who gave evidence that Mr Murphy was not in a fit state to make a plea or instruct counsel.
Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, for the DPP, argued that Mr Murphy fully understood what he was doing. He was fully legally represented at all stages.
Refusing the application, Mr Justice Geoghegan, sitting with Mr Justice Kearns and Mr Justice Finnegan, said It was true Judge Haugh had preferred the reports of Dr Smith and another doctor to the testimony of Dr McCaffrey, but he had set out detailed reasons for his decision. This was a perfectly proper exercise of the trial judge's discretion.