O’Brien: ‘I never bribed Lowry. I never paid any minister. I never bribed anybody’
Mr O’Brien was facing cross-examination on the second day of his libel action against Mirror Group of Newspapers over an article in the Irish Mirror in 1998.
“I have never paid Michael Lowry. I never paid any minister. I never bribed anybody,” Mr O’Brien told the High Court. He said he had read the newspapers about Mr Lowry’s difficulties. “He was being slated left, right and centre. I said that person is in difficulty. Should I financially help him or not? It was a fleeting thought. I didn’t,” he said.
Mr O’Brien has initiated proceedings against the Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd and the then editor-in-chief of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan, and the then editor of the Irish Mirror, Neil Leslie, as a result of the publication in June 10, 1998. He claims that the articles were published falsely and maliciously and in their natural and ordinary meaning or by way of innuendo meant Mr O’Brien had paid £30,000 (€38,100) to Ray Burke. He claimed the words also meant that he had paid money by way of a bribe to Mr Burke to secure a licence to broadcast for the 98FM radio station.
The article alleged that former minister Ray Burke was to be investigated for a third alleged payment of £30,000. It referred to an anonymous letter which alleged the donation came from “top radio boss Denis O’Brien”. The High Court has already heard that the Mirror Group has admitted that the article was untrue and was defamatory of Mr O’Brien. The case is before a jury in the High Court for assessment of damages only.
Counsel for the Mirror Group, Eoin McCullough SC, concentrated on an alleged conversation between the then chief executive of Esat Digifone, Barry Maloney, and Mr O’Brien while the pair were running in the Wicklow mountains in 1996 in which it is alleged that Mr O’Brien said he had paid former Minister Michael Lowry £100,000 (€127,000).
Yesterday Mr O’Brien said the conversation had been blown out of all proportion.
“I am paying the price for a stupid remark on the mountainside. I admit it was not true. It was not coincidental that Barry Maloney put his hand up a year later,” he said, claiming Mr Maloney had brought it up in the context of “a power play” during the IPO for Esat Digifone.
Counsel asked Mr O’Brien about the alleged conversation between the two men about alleged payments of £100,000 each to Mr Lowry and an unnamed person. Mr O’Brien replied to Mr McCullough that he said he had to pay £200,000 (€254,000) adding: “I admit it was an untruth, it was a way of getting Barry Moloney to pay invoices.”
Mr O’Brien insisted in the run with Mr Maloney Mr O’Brien never mentioned Michael Lowry’s name. If he had, he said, Mr Maloney would have raised it with the Esat board. He said when he was talking to Barry Moloney he was “spoofing”. He said it was only during the Esat Digifone IPO that the comment “came out of the woodwork”.
He said in 1997 when a tribunal of inquiry was being set up, Barry Moloney had asked him if he ever paid Michael Lowry or anybody for the licence and he told him that he had not. At the end of a board inquiry into the alleged conversation, after Mr Maloney raised it a year later, Mr O’Brien said Mr Maloney accepted his word and so did the directors. Mr O’Brien said the cross examination was a “second bite of the cherry to assassinate my good name”.
Barry Maloney, who was subpoenaed to give evidence, told the court that to the best of his recollection the difference between his version of the alleged conversation and Denis O’Brien’s was the location. He said it was in an office and Mr O’Brien said it was on a run. He said he saw his duty as Esat CEO was to make the board aware of the conversation.
