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THE HIGH COURT has ruled in favour of a Co Galway man who had sued his step mother seeking a one sixth share of a €3.38 million Lotto win.
Justice Richard Humphreys ruled that David Walsh was part of a syndicate and was a co-owner of a winning ticket and was entitled to approximately €560,000 share of the jackpot.
David Walsh, who was one of six signatories on the back of the winning ticket, sued his step mother Mary Walsh, who was married to his late father Peter Walsh, claiming he was entitled to a one sixth share.
The judge said evidence given by Mary Walsh during the seven day hearing was inconsistent, “not credible”, contained “self contradiction” and was “unreliable”.
Outside court following the ruling a clearly delighted Mr Walsh smiled at members of the media.
In his action he claimed his late father had told him, shortly after the win, he would be looked after and would not have to worry about money again. However he claimed he did not get his share.
Mary Walsh opposed the claim and argued that she was the sole owner of the winning ticket, which was bought in Ballinasloe on 22 January 2011.
Gift tax
She had claimed that she, her late husband and four of their relatives had signed the back of the ticket to avoid paying gift tax.
The court heard Mary Walsh’s son Jason received €300,000, her son Tony Stg£380,000 (about €456,000) while Kevin Black, a nephew of Peter Walsh received €100,000.
She also said David Walsh was offered the option of having €200,000 from the Lotto win or the former home that she and her late husband shared at Knocknagreena, Ballinasloe and opted for the house. David Walsh denied that.
The transfer of the property, which has been valued at €135,000, was completed in December 2011 when Peter Walsh died.
Following the conclusion of evidence on what was the seventh day of the hearing Justice Humphreys said he accepted evidence tendered by David Walsh as being credible.
This was in contrast to evidence tendered by his step mother which the judge said had given evidence that was “fundamentally inconsistent” and she “lied on oath”.
While it had initially been denied by the defendant there was an acceptance during her evidence that David Walsh was a co owner of the ticket.
Intention
The judge said he was satisfied from the evidence that after it was discovered they had the winning ticket there was an intention that three members of Mary Walsh’s family and three members of the late Peter Walsh’s family would benefit from the win.
The judge also said that it had been admitted that the ticket was to be 50-50 between Mary Walsh and her late husband.
The judge did not accept that Mary Walsh was the sole owner of the winning ticket nor did the court accept her claim that her stepson had been offered the house instead of €200,000.
Given the valuation of the house, it did not make sense that David Walsh would do himself out of €65,000, the judge said. The judge also found that the transfer of the house had nothing to do with the lotto win.
He said there was no mention of the lotto win or that the transfer was being done as a result of the win in the file of the solicitor who handled that transaction.
The judge also said he was satisfied from the evidence that Mary Walsh had lied on a sworn statement to Revenue when extracting probate following her husband’s death.
She had made a conscious decision to swear a false affidavit, where details including the number of children the late Peter Walsh had and details about joint assets were omitted, for the purpose of hiding assets from her stepchildren.
The judge said that he did not accept Mrs Walsh’s explanation that the omissions were “made in error”.
A stay on the judge’s order was placed on terms including she lodge €929,000 to cover legal costs and the award in court, pending an appeal.
The judge also made a temporary freezing order preventing her from reducing below that sum. Liberty to vary that order was also granted by the judge.
We have the other extreme here. Damned if do. Damned if you don’t. The fact is heroin destroys families. They should of thought of that when selling the horrible stuff.
You’ll find that the majority, if not all, these inmates have come from broken homes and deprived communities where they sold drugs to survive. It’s nasty and yes they were part of the cycle that they themselves were trapped in but Obama is acknowledging that solution involve them; much in the same way Mo Molam knew the peace process in NI had to involve inmates in British prisons.
Why is Obama doing this at the end of his term instead of at the beginning? The US prison population stands at over 2million. That’s more than China has incarcerated. It’s almost 2.5 times more than Russia has in prison.
the vast majority of prisons in the US are privately owned, run foe profit and care more about the bottom line than society. barry is an actor..reading off a script and being told what to do, as badly as drugs have messed up parts of society unpunished white collar crime and the burden it has put on society has damaged it a lot more.
in america there is a prison industrial complex,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,thats the problem.
here there are yobos with 17 previous convictions walking free and committing more serious crimes because the justice system is far to lenient on them. the legal system does not mind, its a big cash cow for them.
Obama is a good actor and that’s all. It is well established fact that since he took office his administration has refused more freedom of information requests than other other administration in US history. And if he gave two shits about ‘non-violent crimes’ then he’d have long arranged for Snowden to come home and would have intervened in the Bradley Manning case as he could have done at any time.
He’s a liar, and has done nothing but further liberalise US laws (which is why most of these guys are in prison in the first place).
Hilary Clinton is far worse than he and if she makes it in it’s bye bye US.
OK idiot. Restored pride to US after years of Bush’s wrath. A true statesman. Agree with you about Hillary though. I hope Sanders wins
Try making a point like an adult and I might respond to you. Other than that. Take a hike.
you just replied to him.
My heart is bleeding purple piss reading the sob stories.
If anything our Judiciary here could learn a thing or two from US Judges about sentencing and the whole US legal system.
Instead of having Solicitors and Barristers they have just one set Lawyers who deal with your case from start to finish. Where there is a dedicated Prosecution Service staffed by full time Prosecution Lawyers and a dedicated Public Defenders Office staffed with full time Defence Lawyers for those that would normally get free legal aid here. And then Private Legal Firms for those that can afford them.
Yes because there is so little crime in the US compared to Ireland.
Funny how you, a prison officer, propose following almost every part of the US save the mass privatization of prisons, wonder why that could be, oh right, self interest.
Wari.
Simply because Privatised Prisons have been shown time and time again to be an utter disaster in terms of security and staff safety. One only has to look at our nearest neighbour to see just how much of a bad idea they are and why the rest of Europe are not following suit. In reality they actually cost the state more than those under Government control in the long term.
I’m all for criminals doing time for their crimes especially violent or sexual crime but some of the sentences for carrying a small amount of drugs are ridiculous. Check out the segment John Oliver did on it, it’s a real eye opener. When I think of the idiot I was as a teenager, I would hate to go to jail for 15 years because of being on idiot.
I didn’t deal drugs! lol
If the sale of illegal substances was legalised and regulated then a lot of these places would see a massive reduction in crime as the people relying on the drug trade to make a living would be forced into tax-paying, gainful employment as they could not compete with a well regulated, safe industry. Also, not only would we gain the tax from the legal sale of drugs, it would be much easier to ensure the quality and safety of such substances as they could be tested in proper labs before being passed onto the public. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the head in the sand approach just doesn’t work. As long as there is a clear demand for drugs, there will always be people willing to risk everything to meet that demand for massive tax free profits.
In fact the Americans have the right idea here. Conspiracy to distribute heroin is no small crime. In my opinion 15 years is entirely appropriate. Crime must be punished harshly or we are all doomed.
They should do more about guns than 1000 year prison terms
How about maybe not dealing heroin. Heroin is a violent drug as is most other drugs. And yes that includes Weed. So just because the initial deal was violent… what we should let them away. The Americans have the right way. Full length senences for federal offences. If we could adopt there legal court room system this country would be a hell of a lot better off.
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