MORIARTY TRIBUNAL:AN ENGLISH solicitor has accepted he signed rewritten letters that had mentioned former minister Michael Lowry in their original form, but has said he had not done so with a view to misleading the tribunal.
Christopher Vaughan, who acted in property deals in Mansfield and Cheadle in the late 1990s, has been unable to explain how letters that mentioned Mr Lowry came to be rewritten with mentions of Mr Lowry excluded. He has accepted that evidence he gave in April to the effect that the letters were rewritten because they mistakenly mentioned Mr Lowry was incorrect and that they correctly mentioned the former minister.
The tribunal is investigating the deals as part of its inquiries into whether Mr Lowry ever received a financial benefit from the businessman Denis O’Brien.
Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, asked about the “top copy” letters on Mr Vaughan’s notepaper. “You signed a version of the top copy in each case and in doing it you knew you were removing references to Michael Lowry,” Mr Healy said.
Mr Vaughan agreed the letters were rewritten but said he could not agree it was done so as to conceal the involvement of Mr Lowry.
The tribunal has been told that Mr O’Brien’s then accountant, Aidan Phelan, took over ownership of the Cheadle deal after Mr Lowry had been unable to come up with the £420,000 sterling needed to close the deal.
However letters that came to light earlier this week indicate that it was still being considered that Mr Lowry could make a £600,000 profit from the resale of the property, after its purchase had been completed in December 1999 with a loan from Investec Bank, organised by Mr Phelan.
Mr Vaughan said his letters were in his possession at all times save for a period of a few weeks in 2001 when he left them in Dublin with Mr Phelan and his business partner Helen Malone.
Mr Vaughan was also asked about a September 1998 letter he wrote to Mr Lowry in which he mentioned Mr Lowry’s “total involvement” in a £4.3 million deal in Doncaster.
The existence of the letter was not disclosed to the tribunal until January 2003, when a report on the matter appeared in The Irish Times. Mr Vaughan said he wrote the letter after having had a conversation with Mr Lowry during which he formed the impression that Mr Lowry was involved with the deal. He was later told this was not the case.
He agreed he was “markedly at odds” with Mr Lowry, who said he never received the letter and had never said anything to Mr Vaughan that could have caused him to write the letter.
The tribunal has been told by Mr O’Brien that he was at all times the full owner of the August 1998 transaction. Jim O’Callaghan SC, for Mr O’Brien, asked if Mr Vaughan knew how the paper had come by the letter. Mr Vaughan said he had been told it had been sent in to a reporter.
Mr Vaughan agreed he knew that his credibility was an issue on which the tribunal chairman, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, would have to rule. He said he was secretary of the English society of notaries and was “an honest man”.
Responding to his own counsel Stephen Nathan QC, he said evidence that he gave in April was “correct and truthful evidence of what was in his mind at the time he gave the evidence”.
Mr Justice Moriarty said that if new documents had not come to light this week, Mr Vaughan would have been “inviting me to accept evidence on a not-unimportant matter that you now acknowledge was incorrect”. Mr Vaughan said it was “fortuitous” that the new material had turned up.
Mr Vaughan said the property deals had been identified by Northern Ireland businessman Kevin Phelan. A report carried out after they had been purchased found that the Cheadle property was in a “green belt” and was unlikely to be given planning permission. The “for sale sign” on the Mansfield property had an out-of-date phone number for a firm associated with Mr Phelan.
Mr Vaughan completed his evidence and the tribunal adjourned.
