CAB to continue trawl of Redmond's affairs

Court report: The Criminal Assets Bureau is expected to continue its investigations into George Redmond in spite of the unprecedented one-year prison sentence imposed yesterday on the former official for corruption.

CAB's inquiries are likely to focus on associates of the former assistant Dublin city and county manager, who received more than £1 million in payments from landowners and developers during his career.

Next year, Redmond also faces two further corruption charges relating to £10,000 he allegedly received from a deceased Fianna Fáil county councillor after signing a compulsory purchase order on a property in west Dublin in the mid-1980s. It is not clear whether these charges will be proceeded with.

In the current case, the 79-year-old former official was found guilty last month of receiving £10,000 from garage owner Mr Brendan Fassnidge as a bribe relating to the sale of a right-of-way from Dublin County Council at the Lucan bypass.

Judge Michael White yesterday imposed two one-year sentences, to run concurrently, on offences related to this transaction. This is the longest sentence imposed on a senior official for corruption offences in the history of the State.

His lawyers told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday they intend to appeal the conviction. Judge White refused leave to appeal in his court.

Judge White said he would not order forfeiture of Redmond's pension entitlement of €53,000 and he back-dated the one-year sentences to November 19th, when he was convicted and taken into custody. With remission, Redmond could be free again by next June.

Judge White also refused an application by the prosecution to have Redmond pay their legal costs, saying it would be "manifestly unjust" to award costs against him.

He was taken to the court yesterday from Cloverhill prison, where he spent the past four weeks in custody working in the library. After sentencing, he was returned to Cloverhill, where he is likely to spend the rest of his sentence, according to the prison service.

Outside the court, the head of CAB, Chief Supt Felix McKenna, welcomed the sentence. He said the bureau's investigations had been long and complex, and had involved many agencies.

Judge White told the court he was entitled to impose a sentence of up to seven years in the case, but he had to be guided by the principle of proportionality.

Society expected the highest standard of probity from its public officials, he said, and no person should act above the law. At the time Redmond corruptly received a sum of money, he was an official of the highest standing. This was, therefore, "a serious breach of trust," particularly to the residents of Dublin.

While the country had been well served by its public officials Redmond's behaviour had damaged this reputation.

In mitigation, Judge White said the defendant was in his 80th year. He had a number of serious illnesses and was receiving treatment for some of them. He had also suffered the "indignity and humiliation" of a trial.

He noted the Redmond has a previous conviction for tax offences. He had paid "scant regard" to the revenue laws over many years, which didn't reflect well on him.

Last month, the jury returned 10-2 majority guilty verdicts on the two charges after spending six hours and 42 minutes on its deliberations. The verdicts were delivered on day 13 of the trial after the jury was sent to a hotel overnight.

Redmond had a previous conviction for failing to make tax returns for a 10-year period, for which he was fined £7,500 three years ago. He has also made a settlement for £782,000 with the Revenue Commissioners.

Redmond had denied that while an agent or servant of the Council of the County of Dublin, a public body, he corruptly received £10,000 from Mr Fassnidge on a date between June 1st, 1987, and May 31st, 1988, as an inducement or reward for doing or forbearing to do anything in respect of the sale of a right of way at Palmerstown by the Council of the County of Dublin.

He also denied that as an agent he corruptly accepted £10,000 for himself as an inducement or reward for showing favour to Mr Fassnidge in relation to the said principal's affairs, namely the sale of the right-of-way. Mr Fassnidge told the jury he gave £10,000 in cash in a brown envelope in his own home to Redmond when he was trying to buy a strip of county council land as a right-of-way into and out of the then new Lucan by-pass where he was building a petrol station.