Bitter dispute between Sinn Féin and Brian Stanley deepens amid conflicting versions of events 

TD and former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Brian Stanley resigned from Sinn Féin at the weekend saying he had been subjected to a 'kangaroo court' within the party after a complaint was made against him. Picture: PA

A bitter dispute between Sinn Féin and its former TD, Brian Stanley, deepened on Monday night amid conflicting versions of events about internal disciplinary matters and the referral of a complaint to gardaí.

Sinn Féin has said Mr Stanley was told to go to gardaí when he raised matters of concern during an internal inquiry into a complaint made against him.

Mr Stanley had refuted Sinn Féin’s timeline and said the party should have referred a complaint to gardaí when he raised serious matters to a disciplinary panel on September 11.

Sinn Féin issued a further statement on Monday night, following an extraordinary 48 hours since Mr Stanley resigned, but the party still refused to divulge the nature of the complaint against him.

Mr Stanley said on Monday that he welcomed Sinn Féin’s decision to refer a report of the disciplinary panel to gardaí in recent days, but said he urged the party to do so in September.

The veteran TD resigned from Sinn Féin on Saturday, saying he had been subjected to a “kangaroo court” after a complaint was made against him.

On Monday, Mr Stanley contradicted statements by Mary Lou McDonald, in which she said Sinn Féin had become aware of the complaint against Mr Stanley on August 2.

In a statement issued by a solicitor, Mr Stanley said the complaint had been made on July 26.

In a response, Sinn Féin said its disciplinary committee contacted the complainant on August 1 and told her how to make a formal complaint.

She then submitted a full statement on August 2, which the party says “marked the official commencement of the disciplinary process”.

Sinn Féin accepted that Ms McDonald and Mr Stanley had a “brief exchange” on July 29, but said that Mr Stanley “indicated that he thought that a complaint might be made about him”.

Sinn Féin said that “during the course of the preliminary inquiry, a number of issues of concern were raised — including one by Brian Stanley”.

Mr Stanley said that Sinn Féin had carried out a “character assassination” on him, adding that “the information had been deliberately kept from me that there was a complaint or the nature of it”.

“One middle-ranking party member instructed other members that I was not to be informed of [the complaint’s] existence,” he said.

“I had to get my solicitor, six days later, to write to the party [July 31] to ascertain what was the nature of this complaint.

In the intervening period, from July 26, the process of character assassination was well underway by a certain party clique and has continued unabated since then.

“These facts and others mean that there has been a significant abuse of process and, when it was brought to the attention of the Sinn Féin ‘panel’, it was simply brushed aside.”

Sinn Féin said “it is now for the gardaí to decide if any of the matters we have brought to their attention require further investigation”.