A former managing director accused of stealing over €570,000 from Bank of Ireland Private Bank told a solicitor's firm that invoices “should not be sent to anyone in the office but me”, his trial has heard.
“It is unhelpful,” Brendan Mullin is alleged to have written in an email to McCann Fitzgerald solicitors litigation partner Roddy Bourke in December 2012, after it emerged a Bank of Ireland staffer had queried an invoice sent to the bank by the firm.
Mr Mullin (60), who is accused of stealing over €570,000 from Bank of Ireland Private Bank among other charges, denies all 15 charges against him.
Mr Mullin, of Stillorgan Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, has pleaded not guilty to one count of stealing €500,000 from Bank of Ireland Private Bank, Mespil Road, Dublin 4 on December 16th, 2011, along with eight other counts of stealing various amounts of money amounting to just over €73,000 from the bank on various dates.
He has further pleaded not guilty to one count of deception and five counts of false accounting. All the offences are alleged to have occurred between July 2011 and March 2013.
Mr Mullin was the managing director of Bank of Ireland Private Bank at the time of the alleged offences, and he is a former rugby international who played for Ireland.
As part of its case against him, the prosecution alleges Mr Mullin authorised payments by the bank to solicitors McCann Fitzgerald, accounting firm Grant Thornton and accountants Beechwood Partners for work that was carried out either for his company, Quantum Investment Strategies, or for him personally.
Giving evidence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Monday, Mr Bourke told the court that in September 2012, the firm sent Mr Mullin an invoice for just over €56,000 for advice he received in relation to a litigation matter.
Mr Bourke told the court that Mr Mullin was being sued by two individuals in relation to investments where they claimed they made losses. He said that the litigation concerned a time period where Mr Mullin was working on his own account for a period of eight months in between finishing up working for one company in 2007 and joining another.
Mr Bourke said that although the litigation was ongoing while Mr Mullin was employed by Bank of Ireland, “the underlying events which gave rise to the litigation were long over by the time he started with Bank of Ireland”.
The court was shown a transcribed copy of a voicemail Mr Mullin left Mr Bourke in June 2012, in which he told the solicitor: “Either way, the bill will be settled”.
The court was told that Mr Mullin then told Mr Bourke during an ensuing phone conversation that he was meeting an insurance broker from his previous employment along with a senior person from Bank of Ireland.
Mr Bourke said it was his impression that Mr Mullin was “seeking indemnification or protection in respect of that claim being made against him”.
“He was going with a senior person from Bank of Ireland to put the case to insurers that they should pay the damages and the costs,” Mr Bourke said. He agreed with prosecution counsel that this included the solicitor's fees.
The court was then brought through a number of invoices, with the jury being told Mr Mullin wanted the €56,000 bill to be split in two different ways.
Mr Bourke said he received instructions to split the bill, with one third (€18,450) to be referenced as advice to Quantum Investment Strategies and the remaining two thirds (€37,585) to be referenced as advice in relation to the named individuals in the litigation matter.
The court heard that in October 2012, a member of the billing department in McCann Fitzgerald was contacted by a member of procurement in Bank of Ireland saying the €18,450 bill could not be paid as it was made out to Mr Mullin's home address. A fresh invoice was subsequently issued to Bank of Ireland Private Bank using this address and this bill was paid, the court heard.
The court was then brought through further emails in relation to the outstanding €37,585 bill and “administrative changes” allegedly requested by Mr Mullin. The court has heard instructions were made that one amount of €18,450 be billed to Bank of Ireland and a second amount of €19,135 be addressed to Mr Mullin personally.
However, Mr Bourke's personal assistant, Rosie Freeman, then remembered that counsel fees of just over €5,842 were outstanding and these had to be added to one of the invoices, the court heard.
In early December, a Bank of Ireland procurement staffer got in touch with McCann Fitzgerald in relation to the subsequent invoice of €24,295, which included counsel fees. This bank worker said a procurement order number had already been issued for the bill which did not include counsel fees, and she suggested a separate invoice be issued for those fees.
Ms Freeman emailed Mr Mullin to inform him of this and later that day, Mr Mullin emailed Mr Bourke directly saying: “Roddy, these invoices with payments should not be sent to anyone in the office but me. It is unhelpful. I will revert shortly.”
In January, the invoices for €18,450 and €5,842 were discharged by Bank of Ireland, the court heard.
In March that year, Ms Freeman received a handwritten note on Brendan Mullin headed notepaper and the outstanding €19,135 invoice with handwritten markings all over it. Ms Freeman has previously told the court she was “alarmed” by this and found it “very peculiar”.
The invoice markings reduced the bill to €18,792.65, changed the address from Mr Mullin's home address to Bank of Ireland Private Bank and changed the narrative from advice regarding the named litigants to advice to Quantum Investment Strategies.
A revised invoice with these changes was issued to Bank of Ireland Private Bank in March 2013, Mr Bourke said.
The trial continues before Judge Martin Nolan and a jury.
