A key figure in the Moriarty tribunal’s money trail inquiry into links between billionaire Denis O’Brien and Tipperary TD Michael Lowry has been found guilty of fraud in England.
Kevin Phelan (62), from Omagh, Co Tyrone, is facing up to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of conspiring to defraud pension holders and cheat the UK Revenue and Customs between January 2013 and December 2014.
A jury at the Crown Court in Leeds found Phelan and two others guilty of fraud on August 1st after a lengthy trial but the decision could not be reported at the time for legal reasons. Phelan is currently out on bail pending sentence.
At a hearing in Leeds on Friday, Judge Penelope Belcher lifted the reporting restrictions and set a sentencing hearing for January 8th. She warned the defendants they would be remanded in custody at the end the first day of the sentencing hearing, which is expected to last two days.
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“Significant sentences are inevitable,” the judge said.
The Crown Prosecution Service has said the convictions are at the upper end of the scale and has mentioned possible sentences of approximately seven years. The three convicted men are also facing possible confiscation orders.
Phelan was not in court on Friday or when the jury’s verdict was delivered in August. On the latter occasion the court was told he was receiving medical treatment in Northern Ireland for “potentially serious heart issues”.
Also found guilty on August 1st were Daniel Giles, of Jacob Drive, Coventry, and Mohammed Bashforth, of Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Bashforth has an online presence as one of a duo of converts to Islam called the Two White Muslims.
The pension fraud involved a so-called pension liberation scheme and the lodgement as part of the scam of £2.5 million (€2.87 million) from pension holders who agreed to transfer their pension benefits to the unregulated scheme.
Some older people lost their life savings because of the fraud, the jurors were told.
Among other matters, the trial heard evidence of how Phelan had claimed to be part of an alleged plan to take over ownership of the Doncaster Rovers football team, even though he had been declared bankrupt just a month earlier.
Phelan, who did not give evidence, was described as a “thoroughly dishonest man” by prosecution counsel Tim Hannam KC in his closing address to the jury in June.
Phelan featured in the lengthy Moriarty (payments to politicians) tribunal because he acted in property deals in England in the late 1990s involving both Mr Lowry and Mr O’Brien.
[ Denis O’Brien paid €5.8 million for Moriarty Tribunal legal costsOpens in new window ]
The deals investigated included one where Mr O’Brien bought the lease to the Doncaster Rovers Football Club stadium so it could be redeveloped, as well as the purchase by Mr Lowry of investment properties in Mansfield and Cheadle.
The tribunal concluded the property deals were linked to Mr O’Brien seeking to confer financial benefits on Mr Lowry and that the transactions were in turn associated with the TD’s interference in the 1995 mobile phone licence competition to the benefit of Mr O’Brien’s Esat consortium.
Both men strongly disputed the tribunal’s findings. Phelan did not given evidence to the tribunal.
In its 2011 report, the tribunal said a £150,000 (€172,000) payment to Phelan by Mr O’Brien, and a £65,000 payment to Phelan by Mr Lowry, when the tribunal was still conducting its inquiries, were principally designed to ensure Phelan would not undermine falsehoods that were being presented to the tribunal in relation to the property deals. The tribunal was told the payments were fees due to Phelan arising from the deals.
A number of years after the tribunal reported, a secret tape recording emerged of a telephone conversation between Phelan and Mr Lowry about a third payment – £248,624 – that had not been disclosed to the tribunal.
On the tape, Mr Lowry could be heard pleading with Phelan not to say that this payment, from Mr Lowry to Phelan, was associated with the Doncaster deal.
The tribunal had been told the Doncaster deal was solely associated with Mr O’Brien and had nothing to do with Mr Lowry.
