Quinn jailing

Last month Seán Quinn, his son, and a nephew were convicted of contempt of court for not complying with court orders made last year in relation to €500m in assets.

These include a shopping centre in the Ukraine worth €62m.

Mrs Justice Elizabeth Dunne found the Quinns to have been blatantly dishonest and deceitful about the movement of the assets in question. She warned them then that she would not “sit idly by”.

The three men had until this week to reverse the steps taken to put international assets out of the reach of the former Anglo Irish Bank.

The judge remained distinctly unhappy with the level of co-operation from the Quinn family. Yesterday she ordered the jailing for three months of Seán Quinn jnr, and his cousin Peter Darragh Quinn, who was not in court and could not be located.

The judge did not jail the father, Seán Quinn snr, because she is anxious that he should reverse the alleged asset-stripping measures.

She obviously dismissed any suggestion of judicial extortion when she rejected arguments by the Quinn legal team that it was “medieval” to jail the son while the “chieftain” remained free.