THE WIFE of a former town councillor accused of receiving €80,000 in corrupt payments has denied in court that “revenge” was her motive for telling a TD and gardaí of her “suspicions” about her husband.
Jenny Forsey agreed at Waterford Circuit Court that she was “furious” when she discovered her husband had “another partner” in late 2006, but said she was calm by the time she went to John Deasy TD in April 2007 to tell him what she knew about her husband’s “dealings” with a property developer.
Former Fine Gael councillor Fred Forsey jnr (42), Coolagh Road, Abbeyside, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, has pleaded not guilty to receiving €60,000, €10,000 and €10,000 in three corrupt payments from a developer in 2006.
Ms Forsey said she had had her suspicions about her husband having another partner during September 2006, and then Mr Forsey had sent their 15-year-old daughter a text message “meant for his partner”.
Their marriage was “breaking down” by then. She said she had not spoken to Mr Forsey since December 2006.
She denied that she deliberately drove into a wall outside the house where Mr Forsey moved after he left their home, she said, but agreed that she “ripped up presents” bought by his new partner for the Forseys’ three children.
This was before Christmas 2006, when she called to the house and Mr Forsey said the other woman was not present.
“You were furious,” John Phelan SC, defending, said to the witness.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Hell hath no fury, would that be a good description?” he asked.
“I’m sure it would,” Ms Forsey said.
She agreed she “attacked” Mr Forsey’s new partner but said his partner “gave as good as she got”.
Mr Phelan said he now had “a picture” of why Ms Forsey went to Mr Deasy and made a statement to gardaí. “Revenge,” he said.
“No,” Ms Forsey answered. “I didn’t approach Mr Deasy or the guards until April. That’s four months later. I didn’t rush into the town or rush into the Garda station as a woman scorned.”
She said she “voiced my suspicions” to Mr Deasy in April 2007.
In December 2006, she loaned Fred Forsey €10,000 for his driving instruction business.
However, when he had not repaid her within a week or two, she threatened to go to the guards “about his dealings with [the developer]”.
Earlier in her evidence, Ms Forsey said her husband had a number of meetings with the developer, who wanted to get a piece of land outside Dungarvan rezoned, in summer and autumn 2006. He told her he wanted to “get in” with this developer, who was “a very wealthy man”.
The couple and their three children went on a family holiday to Rome in August 2006 when she thought they did not have the money to go abroad. Mr Forsey told her that the developer had “lodged €30,000 in his account”.
There was “never any question” of repaying the money, she said, but she later agreed with Mr Phelan that Mr Forsey never said it was not a loan that he had received from the developer.
The court heard from council officials that county councillors voted by a majority in 2008 to rezone some of the land in question for industrial use, but this was later overturned by the then minister for the environment John Gormley.
Current county manager Denis McCarthy told the court he was not aware who contacted the minister on the issue, or that Mr Deasy had “approached the minister”.
The trial continues today.