Ross in `shock' at plight of investors

Cork born financier Mr George Finbarr Ross yesterday spoke of his "shock" that his former investors had not received "a penny" following the collapse of Gibraltar-based International Investments Ltd (IIL). The offshore bank, set up by Mr Ross and others in 1979, went bust five years later owing millions to investors. Mr Ross, on trial at Belfast Crown Court accused of duping investors and false accounting, claimed he gave up running the Irish side of IIL's operations to concentrate on developing investments in the US.

Giving evidence in his own defence after being cleared of two of the 41 charges he faces, Mr Ross claimed that, by 1982/83, the Irish holdings of IIL were the responsibility of Dublin chartered surveyor Mr Frank Murray and a Ms Nuala Hussey.

Mr Ross said claims later made in a Dublin court by Mr Murray that he had nothing to do with IIL were "a lie" because he had been responsible for managing properties, collecting rents on them, loans and art works belonging to the company.

Mr Ross (54) claimed that property investments in Dublin city and county and in Co Sligo were substantial and were worth over more than £1 million. He dismissed as "rubbish" the assessment by the liquidator that they were of "poor quality".

Asked by his defence QC, Mr Arthur Harvey, for his reaction on hearing the properties raised little after the company went into liquidation, Mr Ross claimed: "I am shocked about that and all of this. I have been wondering why people have not been getting money back."

"Can you understand how the liquidation raised so little?" asked Mr Harvey. "I've been shocked by some of the stories I have been hearing," replied Mr Ross.

Mr Ross posed a question on the apparent disappearance of £200,000 from the Bank of Ireland on the Isle of Man after Mr Harvey put it to him that the Committee of Inspectors, headed by Dublin barrister Mr Colm Allen and formed to help the liquidator, had told the liquidator "the money wasn't there". "Have the Committee of Inspectors took the money or what?" asked Mr Ross.

Mr Ross also said reports that the sale of artwork raised only £65,000 at auction were "not true" and went on to express his disbelief that "not one penny" was recovered from loans made to companies and people in the Republic. He further claimed that at no time before the company went into liquidation was he told that IIL was in financial difficulties, except that it had a "temporary cash-flow glitch".

The trial continues.