LAST UPDATE | 5 Nov

FORMER RUGBY INTERNATIONAL Brendan Mullin has been found guilty of stealing hundreds of thousands of euro from Bank of Ireland Private Bank when he was its managing director a decade ago.

The jury returned guilty verdicts in 12 of the 14 charges before the court today after nearly seven hours of deliberating. Mullin made no visible reaction when the verdicts were handed down.

Mullin (61) stood trial in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court accused of nine counts of stealing more than €570,000 from the bank between 2011 and 2013, along with five false accounting charges. He had denied all charges against him.

The jury was directed by the trial judge to return a verdict of not guilty on a further count of deception alleging Mullin induced two bank workers to sign a payment authorisation letter.

The three-week trial heard allegations Mullin, of Stillorgan Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, was acting dishonestly when he arranged for sums of money to be paid by the private bank to McCann Fitzgerald solicitors, Beechwood accountants and Grant Thornton for work that had been done either for him personally or for his firm Quantum Investment Strategies.

The prosecution further alleged that Mullin stole €500,000 from Bank of Ireland during a breakdown in communication within various arms of the banking group, with the money ultimately being transferred to a company called Spice Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands.

The court heard Spice Holdings was a client that Mr Mullin had brought into the bank.

The jury returned not guilty verdicts on two of the charges before the court relating to Beechwood Partners. These related to an alleged theft of €6,150 from the private bank for work carried out by this company for Mr Mullin and a false accounting charge related to the same.

Judge Martin Nolan thanked the jury for its hard work and diligence. 

After the verdicts were handed down, defence counsel asked that Mullin be remanded on continuing bail ahead of sentence, saying he “wishes to spend as much time with his family as possible”.

Judge Nolan ruled that Mullin should be remanded on bail ahead of sentencing, with a sentence date fixed for 25 November.

The judge said he did not believe Mullin was a flight risk and he noted “all avenues are open” in relation to sentencing. He ordered Mullin to hand over his passport, which the court heard is currently with his solicitor.

Trial

The trial heard from numerous bankers and was brought through large amounts of documentation relating to invoices and emails dating back to the period in question during the three-week trial.

The court heard that in April 2013, Mullin paid McCann Fitzgerald the €61,000 in legal fees that the private bank had paid for and that in July 2015, he arranged for Quantum to pay €500,000 to Bank of Ireland Private Bank.

In his closing speech to the jury last week Dominic McGinn SC, prosecuting, told jurors they didn’t have to consider the “complex world of banking” but only Mullin’s behaviour at the time. “What the case boils down to is dishonesty,” he said.

He told the jury paying the money back was not a defence, if the intention was always to deprive the owner of it.

“Was it a big mistake, a misunderstanding, or was he [Mullin] doing it dishonestly? That’s what the case is about.”

The court heard evidence that in relation to the McCann Fitzgerald payments, Mullin asked the solicitors to redirect the invoices from his own personal address to the private bank.

The court heard he told his superiors that the invoices had been mistakenly put in a bundle of client invoices and paid in error.

In relation to the Spice Holdings transfer, the court heard that Bank of Ireland Private Bank and New Ireland – both arms of the bank’s Wealth Management Division – agreed to equally split a €1million refund to customers relating to a pay-out of life assurance claims, with the court hearing there was a communications breakdown in relation to this.

The trial heard that €500,000 was transferred by New Ireland into a Northern Trust account in the name of Spice Holdings in December 2011.

Six months later, €500,000 was transferred into another account in the name of Spice Holdings, held by Royal Bank of Canada in Jersey following the receipt of a faxed instruction.

Mr McGinn suggested that Mullin was “central” to efforts to transfer €500,000 to Spice Holdings.

“Between July and December 2011, it appears Mr Mullin put considerable energy in getting those funds into the control of Spice Holdings,” he told the court.

Mr McGinn noted that an instruction sent in June 2012 to transfer the €500,000 to a Spice Holdings account held by the Royal Bank of Canada in Jersey was addressed to Mullin, not a relationship manager.  

The court heard that the private bank wrote to the Royal Bank of Canada seeking more information about the transaction, but those enquiries came to nothing.

Mr McGinn said it was the prosecution’s case that Mullin “was instrumental in taking the money” and repaid the money “in an attempt to make it go away”.

In his closing address, Brendan Grehan SC, defending, said Mullin never intended for the bank to be at a loss and that he paid €500,000 to Bank of Ireland in 2015 after he felt under pressure by the bank’s solicitors and didn’t want a serious allegation hanging over him.

The court heard that the alleged Spice Holding theft was due to a “processing error” while the McCann Fitzgerald payments were made as a result of “mix-ups, confusion and inattention” within the bank.

Mr Grehan told the jury that Mullin always intended to pay the firm as they were his legal fees.

In relation to Beechwood and Grant Thornton invoices, the defence submitted the bank had agreed to pay these invoices on Mullin’s behalf as a gesture of goodwill when his application for a personal loan was refused.

The court heard the bank never sought the repayment of these monies and the companies were only informed of the allegations in recent years.

The jury returned not guilty verdicts in relation to the Beechwood invoice and theft allegations.