The “ruthlessness” of a Northern Ireland businessman facing fraud charges was shown when he expressed an interest in buying English football club, Doncaster Rovers, a month after going bankrupt, a court has heard.
Kevin Phelan (61), is among the defendants in a criminal trial in Leeds, where he is accused of conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to commit fraud by way of false representation in relation to a pension scheme a decade ago.
On Monday, the prosecution began its closing statements in a case which centres on a “pension liberation” fraud scheme that led policyholders in the UK to transfer their pensions to entities associated with Mr Phelan and the other defendants.
Some elderly people lost their life savings, the court was told. The accused have pleaded not guilty.
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Mr Phelan, with an address at The Diamond, Co Monaghan, chose not to give evidence in the trial, and was described as a “thoroughly dishonest man” by prosecuting counsel Tim Hannam KC.
There are “many, many questions” for him to answer, following 25 days of evidence earlier this year.
Delivering his remarks to the jury at Leeds Crown Court, Mr Hannam claimed Mr Phelan “aggressively” controlled the fraudulent schemes.
“He is a man used to exercising control and influence, a man used to controlling the levers of power, but somewhat from behind the scenes ... What he said, went,” Mr Hannam said.
One of the three charges Mr Phelan faces is that he and four other defendants, between January 2013 and December 2014, dishonestly made representations to pension policyholders.
They are accused of making gains for themselves or losses to the policyholders so that money was transferred to the bank accounts of the Cornerstone Friendly Society or Cornerstone Direct.
It is alleged that they told lies that led holders of pension policies to transfer money to bank accounts in the name of a company called Distinctive Koi Ltd or the Cornerstone Friendly Society.
Pension liberation schemes are aimed at gaining early access to pension funds.
Text messages revealed that one of the accused, Dan Giles, of Jacob Drive, Coventry, said he was “sick of making a few million a year” and wanted to “ramp it up” so that they could each make “£50 million to £100 million”.
“He (Mr Phelan) was no doubt delighted to be part of a scheme which basically provided him with free money from people’s life savings funding his lifestyle, his wife’s debts and his mortgage for his big, lovely house with its long drive,” Mr Hannam said.
The court heard that Mr Phelan was declared bankrupt in the High Court in Belfast in March 2013, which prevented him from acting as a director or performing a management role for any company for eight years.
“But of course we know he did, he just did it so secretly,” Mr Hannam told jurors.
Notes seized from a computer showed that Mr Phelan made an approach to British entrepreneur, John Ryan, the then chairman of his home club, Doncaster Rovers, on April 18th, 2013.
“His ruthlessness and determination are, we say, evident from the fact that it was less than a month after his own bankruptcy that he told John Ryan he was interested in buying Doncaster Rovers,” Mr Hannam said.
By July 2013, Mr Phelan “was to lie” to the football club’s owners by claiming he had “an investor ready and willing with sufficient funds to do the deal”, according to the prosecution.
Messages sent by Mr Phelan to one of his co-accused, in July 2014, were read aloud in court, in which he wrote: “We only need a year at it and we’ll be set for life.”
During his closing speech, Mr Hannam referred to the period when “the balloon went up” and bank accounts were frozen in November 2014, when police became involved in the case.
He referred to evidence provided by a witness, who worked in an office containing paperwork held on Cornerstone.
The witness alleged that Mr Phelan came to the premises and told them to “hide Cornerstone paperwork in the ceiling”.
Mr Phelan instructed those on the sales floor to “get rid of the paperwork and to delete information held on Cornerstone from the computers”, the jury was told.
Closing speeches are to continue in the case.
