First Active has won a High Court case taken against it by one of its customers. Delivering his verdict yesterday, Mr Justice Peter Charleton said the only evidence he had found to be reliable was that of Declan McCann, manager of the bank's Kilkenny branch. Mr McCann appeared as a witness for the defence.

Cornelius Cagney took the case against what was formerly First National Building Society, alleging negligence and non-compliance with instructions.

He alleged that, in 1995, Mr McCann failed to put £141,161 into a new account in the name of himself and his two daughters as requested, and instead put £100,000 of the money into an account in the name of Mr Cagney's friend, Tony Sheridan, with the balance going into an account in his own name.

Addressing the court yesterday, the judge said he was of the opinion that the plaintiff's evidence was "completely unreliable" and that his account of having been bullied by the bank was improbable. "Cornelius Cagney has produced an unbelievable account, which I reject," he said. "I am dismissing the plaintiff's case against the defendant."

The judge also said he believed no reliability could be placed on the evidence given by Mr Sheridan and rejected the businessman's account of the alleged business deal between himself and Mr Cagney.

Mr Sheridan had earlier told the court that Mr Cagney, who at the time was depressed as a result of the death of his wife, had agreed to invest £100,000 in his clothing business for the purpose of manufacturing high-fashion jeans and then travelling around the State selling them.

Mr Justice Charleton acknowledged that Mr Cagney was under great stress in 1995 following his wife's death, but said that he believed Mr Cagney never told the building society to open an account in the name of himself and his two daughters. He said that, instead, Mr Cagney invested the money by putting it into a friend's business and into a building society account over which he had no control.

He also said he was of the opinion that no fraud occurred.

The judge said that despite losing the case, he was not ordering Mr Cagney to pay the defendant's costs because there was an argument that, if the building society account application forms had been filled out properly in the first place, the case may not have come to court.

However, he acknowledged that, in 1995, when the account was opened, business practices were not what they are today, and said he was not suggesting any malpractice by the bank.