Salesman forgets details but insists he paid cash

Brendan Fassnidge was no ordinary car salesman. It wasn't so much that he sold Liam Lawlor's wife a silver Audi coupé back in the 1970s that made him stand out. Or that he started his own business by selling cars from outside the front of his mother's house.

Rather, it was forgetfulness concerning key details such as transactions, bank accounts, dates of deals and even his former road traffic offences that marked him out at yesterday's hearing at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Like any car salesman, Mr Fassnidge was more interested in closing deals than worrying over details.

So when he said he threw George Redmond, Dublin's assistant county manager, £10,000 in a brown envelope in exchange for the awarding of a right of way between his petrol station and a busy dual carriageway, the details didn't seem to matter.

So where did he give him the cash? Mr Redmond's defence counsel asked yesterday. "I gave him the cash in the hallway of the house. I had it in my inside pocket," he told the court.

Yet he had told gardaí in an earlier statement that he had the cash in a drinks cabinet, Mr Redmond's lawyers insisted.

What kind of envelope had he told gardaí he had used?

"I didn't go into that detail."

But statements taken by gardaí suggested he had handed over the cash in an A4 envelope.

What bank did he draw the cash from?

The Bank of Ireland, he said.

Yet he told a journalist with the Sunday Business Post in March 1999 that he had drawn the cash from National Irish Bank.

Mr Fassnidge was unimpressed by questions from Mr Redmond's defence counsel.

"We're talking about splitting hairs," he said dismissively. "It's waste of court time, isn't it? Come on," casting a cold eye on Mr Redmond's defence counsel, Mr Brendan Grehan.

But Mr Redmond's lawyer wouldn't let up. He pointed out that in the absence of Mr Fassnidge's wife, who apparently saw the envelope being handed over but has declined to give evidence, the court would have to rely on Mr Fassnidge's memory.

"Thank you," Mr Fassnidge said. "That wasn't meant to be a compliment," Mr Gregan said, to titters in the courtroom.

So obsessed with detail was Mr Redmond's lawyer that he even dug up five brushes with the law involving Mr Fassnidge regarding speeding or drink-driving. Did he remember them?

The question was met with a blank response from Mr Fassnidge, who remembered just one.

Mr Fassnidge regarded himself as "good at selling cars" in his early days. Soon he built up a £2 million business, which he lost in the early 1980s when the economy crashed. He suffered a nervous breakdown and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for 10 weeks, he said.

Brendan Fassnidge was no ordinary car salesman, though. He bounced back quickly with plans to open a garage adjacent to the Palmerstown bypass.

When he couldn't get planning permission for it, Liam Lawlor proposed a Section Four motion in the council on Mr Fassnidge's behalf, despite opposition from planning officials. This ensured permission was granted.

Yet Mr Fassnidge said he had never met Mr Lawlor - apart from selling him that Audi coupé several years earlier.

It was after that small planning difficulty was sorted out that he darted over to Mr Redmond, in a bid to sort out other difficulties regarding access between the garage and the roadway.

He may be unsure about the details, he conceded yesterday, but was emphatic about handing over the £10,000.