Kinsella claims sleepwalking issue used to oust him

FORMER KENMARE Resources deputy chairman Donal Kinsella has told the High Court that he believes an incident in Mozambique where he sleepwalked naked to the room of a female colleague was used by his fellow directors as a “set-up” to get him out of the company.

Mr Kinsella also said Kenmare company secretary Deirdre Corcoran could not possibly have seen he was naked because it was dark and the beds were covered with thick mosquito nets. The incident was of “a minor nature”, he said.

He was giving evidence on the second day of his libel action against Kenmare and its chairman Charles Carvill over a press release issued by the company in July 2007.

The release stated the board was to seek Mr Kinsella’s resignation as chairman of the company’s audit committee arising from “an incident” in which he sleepwalked to the room of Ms Corcoran during a trip to Kenmare’s Moma mine on May 9th, 2007.

Mr Kinsella claims the press release led to his becoming a national and international “laughing stock” over sexual impropriety allegations of which he had previously been exonerated by an independent internal inquiry.

Kenmare denies libel.

The court was told yesterday that when Mr Kinsella learned of a planned meeting to remove him from the audit committee, he had asked Irish Daily Mirroreditor John Kierans to make a phone call to Ms Corcoran. That led to the company issuing the press release, described as a "clarifying" release.

Under cross-examination, Mr Kinsella said he took that course because it was his last chance to stop the meeting taking place. He believed publicity might convince Ms Corcoran there had been an “incredible over-reaction” to the Mozambique incident.

Earlier, during examination by Declan Doyle SC, Mr Kinsella said that when he had volunteered to give up his room in the mine accommodation to Ms Corcoran and had said he would share Charles Carvill’s room instead, he had remarked: “I would rather sleep with you [Ms Corcoran]” than with [company chairman] Mr [Charles] Carvill. That remark was made in a jocular fashion and he believed Ms Corcoran took it in that spirit, he said.

Mr Kinsella said his only memory of the night was being awoken at 5.17am when Kenmare managing director Michael Carvill had shouted at him to go back to bed. He had no memory of two other incidents in which he appeared naked at Ms Corcoran’s door that night, he said.

Under cross-examination by Bill Shipsey SC for the defendants, Mr Kinsella said Ms Corcoran must have been “superwoman” to be able to see him naked at her door because of the lighting conditions and the thick mosquito nets.

He believed she was “set up” by Michael Carvill to use the incident to get him out of the company. While he initially believed Ms Corcoran was “a pawn in this game”, he now believed she had had an “active part” in it. He had apologised to her, but his “contrition dissipated when I discovered she was going to tell lies”.

He believed whatever distress he caused Ms Corcoran that night was of a “very minor” nature; her door was opened three times by someone she knew. “Nobody went near her.”

It was normal for him to sleep naked, although he did have a set of pyjamas that his wife sometimes packed for him, but not on this occasion, he said.

Earlier, Mr Kinsella became emotional while speaking of the effect of resultant publicity from the press release, which he believed suggested “a fat-cat director” had preyed on a vulnerable secretary.

He suffered cat-calling and jokes at social events, including one incident at the Galway races where people broke into singing “Yes, we have no pyjamas”.

He was also called “a pervert” at a business meeting when he disagreed with something that was said, he added.

The case continues before Mr Justice Éamon de Valera and a jury.

This article was amended on February 23rd, 2011