Oct 16,2024
A former Irish rugby international has gone on trial charged with stealing over €500,000 from Bank of Ireland Private Banking.
Brendan Mullin, with an address on Stillorgan Road in Donnybrook in Dublin 4, is also facing 14 other charges.
The 60-year-old has pleaded not guilty to the 15 charges against him.
His trial, before a jury of nine men and three women, opened this afternoon at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Mr Mullin has pleaded not guilty to one count of stealing €500,000 from Bank of Ireland Private Bank on Mespil Road in Dublin 4 on 16 December 2011 along with eight other counts of stealing various amounts of money from the bank on different dates.
He has also pleaded not guilty to five counts of false accounting through the furnishing information to the bank authorising payment of invoices while knowing or believing them to be false, misleading or deceptive and not guilty to one count of deception.
The charges are all alleged to have taken place at Bank of Ireland Private Bank on Mespil Road on dates between July 2011 and March 2013.
Mr Mullin, who worked as a Managing Director for Bank of Ireland Private Banking between January 2011 and July 2013, is a former rugby international who played for Ireland.
A new jury was empanelled this morning after 12 jury members selected last week were discharged yesterday as the trial was due to open.
The decision was taken after one of the jurors said they had found out over the weekend that they know a relative of Mr Mullin.
The trial, before Judge Martin Nolan, is expected to last four weeks.
Opening the trial this afternoon, prosecuting barrister Dominic McGinn said the 15 charges against Mr Mullin relate to the period between 2011 and 2013 when he was the Managing Director of Bank of Ireland Private Banking.
BOI Private Banking was a separate entity within the bank group that dealt with investments and services for what was described in the court as "high net-worth customers who had significant funds to invest".
Setting out the evidence in the case, Mr McGinn said eight of the charges Mr Mullin is facing relate to payments made by the bank to McCann Fitzgerald.
The firm of solicitors had done some work for Quantum Investment Strategies, a company in which the former rugby player was a director, the jury was told.
Quantum Investment Strategies needed legal advice and it engaged the services of McCann Fitzgerald, which later sent invoices for the work to Quantum Investment Strategies.
The jurors were told the bills were paid by the bank.
Mr McGinn said it is alleged by the prosecution that Mr Mullin submitted the invoices and as the Managing Director, he was able to authorise the payments.
The jury was told there are a pair of charges for each of the four transactions. Four counts relate to false accounting charges and four relate to theft charges.
Mr McGinn said the invoices were originally issued in Mr Mullin's own name and sent to his home address.
He said it was the prosecution's case that Mr Mullin had asked McCann Fitzgerald to change the name and address on the invoices to Bank of Ireland Private Banking, which amounted to false accounting.
The jury was told by the prosecution that Mr Mullin had "incorrectly authorised the payments" and that amounted to theft.
Mr McGinn also said invoices for work done for the accused by accountancy firm Beechwood Partners were originally sent to Mr Mullin but were later sent to BOI Private Banking.
He told the jury there was a false accounting charge in relation to the invoice and a theft charge relating to the payment of the invoice.
The prosecution said three more charges of theft, where it was alleged Mr Mullin had authorised payments that the bank was not obliged to pay in respect of work done by Grant Thornton for Quantum Investment Strategies.
The final two charges, one of deception and one of theft, relate to the transfer of a sum of €500,000 from Bank of Ireland Private Banking to a company called Spice Holdings, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands, made in the background of a communications breakdown among various entities of the banking group.
Mr McGinn said it related to life insurance policies provided by New Ireland Assurance, another arm of Bank of Ireland, which had been sold to clients.
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But New Ireland Assurance subsequently realised that a limited number of clients, who could have made claims, had not done so.
A figure of more than €1 million had to be paid to the clients impacted.
The jury was told there were discussions among the different parts of the Bank of Ireland group as to who would make the payments.
New Ireland Assurance agreed to pay some and €500,000 was transferred from New Ireland Assurance to BOI Private Banking to meet the debt.
Mr McGinn said in July 2011, a transfer was authorised by Mr Mullin to pay €500,000 to Spice Holdings, which he said related to the deception charge.
Although the authorisation was made, he said the money did not go through and it was returned to New Ireland Assurance.
The jury was told in December 2011, New Ireland Assurance again agreed to transfer the €500,000 in the understating it would be transferred to Spice Holdings.
The account in the name of Spice Holdings was with Northern Trust, another arm of the Bank of Ireland Group.
The money was transferred from New Ireland Assurance into BOI Private Banking and then into the Spice Holdings account with Northern Trust, which Mr McGinn said is the stealing charge.
He said it appeared the money remained in the account for around six months to June 2012, until it was then transferred to another Spice Holdings account in the Royal Bank of Canada in a branch in Jersey in the Channel Islands.
The prosecution said it was after that time that the bank then noticed some invoice anomalies and then began an internal investigation.
Mr McGinn said Mr Mullin offered to resign as Managing Director in 2013 and he said there were communications between the accused and Bank of Ireland seeking the return of the €500,000.
He said more than three years later, at end of July 2015, there was a transfer of €500,000 back into the bank which came indirectly from Quantum Investment Strategies, not Spice Holdings.
Mr McGinn said an investigation was commenced by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.
He told the jury they would hear evidence that when Mr Mullin was questioned, he said the payment of the invoices arose out of clerical mistakes and the invoices got mixed up in other documents.
In the garda interviews, Mr Mullin said the payment of €500,000 to Spice Holdings had nothing to do with him.
The accused said he accepted that he had organised the payment of the €500,000 through his own company Quantum Investment Strategies and the jury was told he gave an explanation as to why that came about.
Mr McGinn said Mr Mullin was arrested in September 2021 and charged with the offences.
The prosecution said while a lot of the details in the case "may seem a little complicated," he said the case is not that complex.
Mr McGinn told the jurors they need to focus on whether there is dishonesty going on or whether there was a misunderstanding.
