An investment consultant has denied he defrauded a former Galway bookie of £124,000. Mr James Alan Conlon (51), Ardna taggle, O'Brien's Bridge, Killaloe, Co Clare, is on trial in Dublin Circuit Court on five charges involving the money, the property of Mrs Fiona Connelly, Caritas House, Ballybane Road, Galway.
Judge Raymond Groarke and a jury were told Mr Conlon was managing director of Ryehill Assurance and Investment Consultants and Ryehill Consultancy Ire land Ltd, of Ryehill House, Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, at the time of the alleged offences. Mr Conlon has pleaded not guil ty to three charges of fraudulent conversion of £66,212, £24,000 and £33,789 from September 20th, 1991, to December 9th, 1992. He has also pleaded not guilty to obtaining £24,000 from Mrs Connelly by false pretences and larceny of the £24,000 on December 4th, 1992.
Mrs Connelly told Mr Michael McMahon SC, prosecuting (with Ms Isobel Kennedy BL), her husband died in 1986. He was a plumbing and heating contractor and she had run a bookmaker's office for some time. She had accumulated savings invested in various insurance policies.
She met Mr Conlon about 1987. In 1991 he advised her to change her investments from insurance policies, which she cashed in about that September. She entrusted various sums to him which he was to invest for her on his advice. He was to put £35,000 into a Norwich Union bond and £100,000 in an Isle of Man company called Hansard International which he said was a substantial business with large assets.
Mrs Connelly said after several months of asking Mr Conlon for evidence that he had invested her £100,000 in Hansard, he got her to sign a document giving him power of attorney regarding it. He later gave her a document which she took to be confirmation of the investment.
She contacted Hansard in October 1992 and was told there was no investment in her name. Mr Conlon persisted in telling her it did exist. He admitted eventually he had not invested the £100,000 in Hansard but had put it into a hotel known as Ryehill Lodge at O'Brien's Bridge.
Mrs Connelly said that in December 1992, Mr Conlon said he was raising a £750,000 loan from a German bank called Carfinanz and needed £60,000 to secure it. He said unless he got the £60,000 she would lose everything. She assigned her £35,000 Norwich Union bond towards this and raised a further £24,000. Det Sgt Colm Featherstone agreed with Mr Erwan Mill Arden SC, defending (with Mr Ross Maguire BL), he did not note in his statement of evidence that Mr Conlon had just arrived back from Australia when met by him and Det Garda Liam O'Connor at Dublin airport on November 9th, 1995.
He went voluntarily to the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and co-operated. Earlier, Det Sgt Featherstone told Ms Kennedy that Mr Conlon agreed he got various cheques from Mrs Connelly but he had not invested the £100,000 in Hansard. He put it into his hotel project with the intention it would only be for six weeks. He did not tell Mrs Connelly as he did not want her to panic.
The hearing continues.