Jury continues deliberation in Anglo trial

The jury in the trial of three former officials of Anglo Irish Bank is to continue its deliberations at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today.

Judge Patrick McCartan warned them yesterday that Anglo Irish Bank was not on trial.

Aoife Maguire (63), of Rothe Abbey, South Circular Road, Kilmainham, Dublin; Bernard Daly (67), of Collins Avenue West, Whitehall, Dublin; and Tiarnan O'Mahoney (56), of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, have been charged with trying to hide accounts, connected to the former chairman of the bank, Seán FitzPatrick, from Revenue between March 2003 and December 2004.

They have pleaded not guilty.

The trial lasted eight weeks and there were witnesses from the Revenue Commissioners, Garda and the bank, but none of the three defence teams called any witnesses.

The jury spent two hours and 20 minutes deliberating yesterday following the judge’s directions to them.

The judge told them to leave any “hard views” about the bank behind.

He advised that it was open to them to accept everything witnesses had said, some of what they’d said or nothing. And they could not draw adverse conclusions from the fact that the three accused had not given evidence, because that was their right.

He told the jury the first charge was that Mr Daly and Mr O’Mahoney had knowingly and wilfully made returns to Revenue that were incorrect.

The crucial phrase was “knowingly and wilfully”, he said, and the jury had to be satisfied of that. The mere handing over of the list to Revenue was not enough.

The other charges related to conspiracy to delete records from the bank’s system and conspiracy to defraud Revenue in relation to those deletions.

The judge said it was an offence for an officer of a company to destroy, mutilate or falsify any book of a company.

He said Ms Maguire was not an officer of the company, but it was possible for a person to agree to commit an offence they could not themselves commit.

The law allowed that. It also did not require the substantive act to be committed, the judge said. The offence was to have an agreement to do it.

Conspiracy was a broad offence, described as “elastic and in disparaging terms”, but it was a valid offence, he said.

The judge said that by reason of history the alleged offences didn’t get investigated until 11 or 12 years after they had allegedly occurred. The delay had had an impact on the quality of the evidence.

People’s memories became vague, he said. This was not the fault of the accused and the prosecution could not benefit from that.

The judge also said the jury might have regard to whether or not any of the witnesses they had heard could be considered as accomplices in the alleged wrongdoing of the accused.

He told the jury if they decided witnesses were complicit they should treat their evidence with caution.

Looking at the statements given by the defendants to gardaí, the judge said it was a matter for the jury to decide whether they had been untruthful and, he said, telling untruths was not the same as admitting to guilt.

He also noted the connection between the accounts at the centre of the case and Mr FitzPatrick. He suggested the more the defendants could amplify the role of Mr FitzPatrick and his misbehaviour, the better from their point of view.

He also told the jury they could draw conclusions from facts in the case, but they were not entitled to speculate.

“If the evidence is not there, it’s not there,” he said.