US phone firm offered cash for files, says O’Brien snr

AN American telephone company allegedly offered stg£2 million for the files connected with a British property purchase by telecoms tycoon Denis O’Brien’s family, the Moriarty Tribunal heard.

Businessman Denis O’Brien senior, 76, said he was “livid” over what he saw as attempted blackmail by Ken Richardson and Mark Weaver, previous owners of Doncaster Rovers football club, to intimidate the O’Brien family into parting with more money.

Weaver later travelled to Northampton solicitor Christopher Vaughan — a former Doncaster Rovers company secretary — waving a copy of a letter the solicitor had sent four years earlier to former Fine Gael Minister Michael Lowry linking the Irish politician to the Doncaster transaction.

Mr Vaughan had acted previously for Mr Lowry, in two British deals involving properties at Cheadle and Mansfield. The solicitor says Mr Lowry had no involvement with the Doncaster transaction.

At a side meeting during mediation talks with the O’Brien family interests in London, in late September 2002, Richardson and Weaver demanded stg£2.5 million to resolve a festering dispute over their claims for further payments.

The original Doncaster deal had been struck four years previously in August 1998 for stg£4.3m.

In a file note, Mr Vaughan described the impromptu arrival of Weaver — “a little nervous man who smells of tobacco” — in his reception area on the morning of October 18, 2002.

The visitor had a piece of paper and was asking what he should do with it.

Writing up the encounter, the solicitor wondered: “Am I just being used as a conduit to facilitate some sort of blackmail? It occurs to me that Denis O’Brien is the only person in this whole business with money.”

Within 20 minutes of Weaver leaving, Mr Lowry’s accountant Denis O’Connor was on the phone to saying there was “a letter floating about”.

Mr Vaughan noted: “Putting it bluntly, I am getting extremely fed up with the whole issue, especially at having my name plastered all over various Irish newspapers.”

Giving evidence for a third day yesterday, Mr O’Brien senior described how, during mediation talks in London, Richardson “hinted” to him a telephone company wanted to buy Doncaster company Dinard Trading — owned by Richardson and Weaver — and all its records.

Richardson refused to name the company, but Mr O’Brien said he believed it was Motorola. It was suggested this telephone company wanted to sue the Irish government for giving a telecommunications licence improperly to the O’Brien family.

“Richardson said ‘I’ve been on... to a lawyer in Zurich who is representing telephone interests and they are very interested in the files of Dinard Trading’ — but if we could give him two and a half million pounds sterling, we could have the files and nothing further would continue,” said Mr O’Brien snr.