Professor's inquiry challenge dismissed

The professor of economics at University College Cork is "a very overbearing and self-righteous personality" whose evidence to the High Court was "totally lacking in candour and clarity", a judge said yesterday. "I doubt if I have heard another witness who was less convincing," Mr Justice Lavan remarked.

He said Prof Conall Fanning considered that "once he has convinced himself of his righteousness, that is the end of the matter".

He found the professor, "abusing his senior status", had intimidated Ms Joan Buckley, a colleague, into withdrawing a complaint against him.

He dismissed a challenge by Prof Fanning to UCC's initiation of disciplinary proceedings following an investigation into an alleged assault by him against Ms Buckley, then an employee in the language department.

The incident was alleged to have occurred in a staff car-park on August 31st, 2001. Prof Fanning was alleged to have grabbed Ms Buckley around the neck and throat because of his concern over the safety of his dog and Ms Buckley's driving behaviour.

Prof Fanning denied assault.

Dismissing the challenge, Mr Justice Lavan said an order by Mr Justice Smyth restraining UCC from disclosing the findings of its investigation into the incident would continue until Tuesday.

In his reserved judgment, he said Prof Fanning had set out an elaborate case. To establish that case, he gave evidence which was delivered "in a defensive and limited fashion and, far from telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it was an exercise in skirmishing and avoiding the issues".

"I do not accept the plaintiff's evidence," the judge said. It was an essential rule of law that persons seeking equity "must come with clean hands". "With great regret, I conclude that this plaintiff has signally failed to do this."

The judge said that following the alleged incident in the car-park, Ms Buckley made a report to the UCC director of human resources. Subsequently, Mr John Horgan, a former chairman of the Labour Court, was appointed to investigate it.

In the meantime, threats of litigation were exchanged between Prof Fanning and Ms Buckley, but they came to what Prof Fanning said was an "amicable resolution". That was denied by UCC.

Solicitors for Ms Buckley later wrote that she wished to put the incident behind her, did not intend to take further steps about it, was withdrawing her report, and while she wished to record it did not wish it to be investigated.

Mr Justice Lavan said it was his view that far from the issues being "amicably resolved", Prof Fanning's conduct towards her was "so overbearing and intimidatory that she was overborne by his threats, conveyed through his solicitors, towards a junior member of the defendant's staff some few weeks before her wedding".

He was satisfied Ms Buckley "fled from his wrath and unreasonableness. I can well sympathise with her decision. I find as a fact that Ms Buckley's withdrawal of complaint was not the result of matters being amicably resolved but was the result of the plaintiff's overbearing and intimidatory conduct."

He noted that in a report of October 19th, 2001, Mr Horgan stated a prima-facie case existed against Prof Fanning. The professor took High Court proceedings and secured an order restraining his suspension.

The High Court later continued that order but with the proviso that UCC could bring disciplinary proceedings against him. UCC did so and Prof Fanning took a legal challenge to those proceedings.

Mr Justice Lavan said he was not concerned with establishing the details of the incident between Prof Fanning and Ms Buckley. All the court was concerned with was whether UCC could invoke the disciplinary proceedings. Prof Fanning had challenged these.

Given his finding that Prof Fanning "has not come to equity with clean hands", it was not necessary to make findings on the important issues raised in the case, he said.