Former managing director of Bank of Ireland Private Bank, Brendan Mullin, never intended for the bank to be at a loss and felt under pressure to arrange a payment to his former employer rather than have serious allegations hanging over him, his €570,000 theft trial has been told.
The bank is not at a loss due to payments made in 2013 and 2015, but Mr Mullin has had the “sword of Damocles” hanging over his head for the last decade due to a delay in bringing the case to trial, defence counsel told the jury in closing speeches on Friday.
Brendan Mullin (61) of Stillorgan Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, a former Irish rugby international, is accused of stealing over €570,000 from Bank of Ireland Private Bank, among other charges, between 2011 and 2013 when he was managing director. He denies all the charges against him.
The jury was due to start its deliberations on Friday afternoon.
In his closing speech to the jury, Brendan Grehan SC, defending, said the outstanding characteristics in the case were the extraordinary delay in bringing it to court and the fact that there is no money missing.
Mr Mullin arranged for his company Quantum to make a €500,000 repayment to the bank because he felt under pressure and to ensure there was no serious allegation hanging over him, the jury was told.
But because of the delay in bringing the case some 10 years later, for which there is no good reason, Mr Mullin has “carried on with his life with the burden of this historic matter hanging over him like the sword of Damocles, not knowing when it is going to fall”, Mr Grehan said.
“Mr Mullin didn’t go off and hide somewhere,” Mr Grehan said. “He stayed here and dealt with people. He stayed and got on with his life and the ups and downs that are inevitably the consequence of a spectacular fall from grace [of losing his job as managing director of the private bank].”
“A lot of the facts are not in dispute,” Mr Grehan told the jury. “The intention of Mr Mullin is. We’re saying it was never Mr Mullin’s intention that the bank would be at a loss. Another standout characteristic of this case is that the bank is not at a loss.”
This was a “very unusual and almost unique feature in respect of the alleged thefts”, the jury was told.
In relation to Mr Mullin’s McCann Fitzgerald legal fees which were paid by the bank, Mr Grehan told the court that Mr Mullin had paid these monies back in April 2013 after contacting the solicitors to “ascertain the full extent of the issue”.
It is the defence case that, due to “mix-ups, confusion and inattention”, the bank paid this money mistakenly and that it was always Mr Mullin’s intention that he would pay these fees, Judge Martin Nolan told the jury in his charge.
Mr Mullin brought his chequebook to a McCann Fitzgerald meeting on April 2nd and paid the €61,000 due, the court heard.
In relation to the €500,000 theft allegation involving Spice Holdings, Mr Grehan said the transaction was “peculiar” and was a result of a “processing error”.
“It is Mr Mullin’s position the transfer was not made for his benefit or the benefit of anyone connected with him,” Mr Grehan said.
The jury was told that when the bank’s solicitors “came after” Mr Mullin in 2015 in relation to the transaction, he “felt under pressure from the bank and decided he couldn’t have allegations he had benefited from the transfer hanging over him”.
“It was a serious allegation, involving €500,000, and so he arranged for Quantum to pay,” Mr Grehan said. He told the jury this payment was made on the understanding that Spice Holdings would “square off the money in question with Quantum at some ill-defined point in the future”.
“His actions made the bank’s loss whole,” Mr Grehan said.
Mr Grehan submitted it was a “startling coincidence” that within two months of the payment, Bank of Ireland made a statement of complaint to gardaí. He said a “perfunctory” one paragraph complaint had been made in May 2013, but that Bank of Ireland “prioritised getting its money back over seeking to advance its investigation”.
He submitted the Garda investigation “only progressed when Bank of Ireland was satisfied it had its money back”.
The jury was told gardaí never managed to track down the money that went to Spice Holdings, with Mr Grehan asserting the “veil was drawn over matters by Royal Bank of Canada” and investigators “got nowhere with them”. He said the prosecution had insinuated that Mr Mullin had benefited from this transfer, but there was no evidence of this.
In relation to the Beechwood and Grant Thornton allegations, Mr Grehan said the bank never came looking for this money and the firms were only made aware of the allegations “many years later” when the Garda investigation was under way.
He said it was agreed that some of this work would be paid for by the bank and “perhaps that’s why the bank never sought any of this money back from Beechwood or Grant Thornton”.
In relation to the delay in bringing the case, Mr Grehan told the jury it would have heard of the phrase, “justice delayed is justice denied”.
“The quality of justice deteriorates if matters cannot be addressed in a timely fashion,” he said. “Achieving justice in a stale case such as this one is much more difficult.” Mr Grehan said there was “no good reason” for the delay, with Mr Mullin first interviewed by gardaí in 2018 and charged in 2021.
He said the delay made it difficult for people to recollect events and it also led to the issue of missing witnesses, such as Paul Gallagher, then private banking head of finance who featured regularly at trial and whom the jury was told was unavailable.
Mr Grehan said Mr Mullin is a man with no previous convictions and no investigations looming. He said the allegations have not been an easy burden for him and his family to bear over the years and he urged the jury to acquit him of all charges.
Mr Mullin has pleaded not guilty to one count of stealing €500,000 from Bank of Ireland Private Bank, Mespil Road, Dublin 4 on December 16th, 2011, along with eight other counts of stealing various amounts of money amounting to just over €73,000 from the bank on various dates.
He has further pleaded not guilty to one count of deception and five counts of false accounting. All of the offences are alleged to have occurred between July 2011 and March 2013.
The jury has been instructed to find Mr Mullin not guilty of one count of deception relating to Mr Mullin inducing two bank workers to sign a payment authorisation letter.
Mr Mullin was the managing director of Bank of Ireland Private Bank at the time of the alleged offences. The trial continues.
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