English solicitor will not testify

An English solicitor who played a key role in the Doncaster Rovers football stadium transaction has now told the tribunal he will not be giving evidence.

Christopher Vaughan acted for Kevin Phelan and then Denis O'Brien in the 1998 purchase of the Doncaster Rovers property. Documents produced by Mr Vaughan have stated that Mr Lowry was involved or had been stated by Mr Phelan to be involved in the transaction.

At the outset of the tribunal's ongoing public hearing into the Doncaster issue, tribunal counsel Jerry Healy SC said it was expected that Mr Vaughan would be attending to give evidence and that the issue of his costs was being resolved.

However, Mr Healy said yesterday the tribunal had been informed that Mr Vaughan was not going to attend. He said the tribunal would seek to ascertain why Mr Vaughan had again changed his mind.

The chairman, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, asked Denis O'Connor, accountant to Michael Lowry, about a comment Mr O'Connor had made during his evidence.

Mr O'Connor had said he had become involved in a dispute concerning the Doncaster transaction at the request of Denis O'Brien's father, Denis O'Brien snr, and that his last contact with Mr O'Brien snr had been a short call in late 2002.

Mr O'Brien had finished the call by telling Mr O'Connor to send him an invoice for the work he had done. The chairman asked if Mr O'Connor had ever sent the invoice.

Mr O'Connor said he was annoyed with how his work had been received and felt that Mr O'Brien's remark may have been "almost sarcastic". "I felt like telling him where to stick it . . . wasn't going to go begging to him, millionaire and all as he was."

Mr Justice Moriarty asked if it had not crossed his mind when asked to become involved by Mr O'Brien, that that might not be the wisest thing to do, from the point of view of perception, given that he was Mr Lowry's accountant. "It obviously didn't," Mr O'Connor said.

He agreed with Eoin McGonigal SC, for Mr O'Brien, that "despite all the months and years we've been here", there was "no concrete evidence" of Mr Lowry being involved with Doncaster.

Mr O'Connor finished his evidence and the tribunal adjourned to a date to be announced.