An English accountant who was involved in the affairs of Doncaster Rovers Football Club Ltd (DRFC) told the tribunal no one had ever suggested to him that Michael Lowry had an involvement with it.
Craig Tallents told Donal O'Donnell SC, for Michael Lowry and Mr Lowry's accountant, Denis O'Connor, that before he had been approached by the tribunal he had had no idea who Mr Lowry was.
He said he had never seen any documentation showing Mr Lowry was involved with DRFC.
Mr Tallents was asked about a note of a September 2002 meeting in London by solicitor Ruth Collard. Ms Collard, Mr Tallents and Mr O'Connor were at the meeting, where they discussed a dispute between the purchasers and vendors of DRFC.
Mr Tallents said he had no recall of a matter mentioned in the note. Ms Collard recorded Mr O'Connor as saying that Mr Lowry did have a connection with the DRFC issue and that Mr Lowry "had been in the room when discussions had taken place between Kevin Phelan and Ken Richardson regarding" a lease that formed part of the dispute.
Mr O'Connor has informed the tribunal that Ms Collard's note is mistaken. Both he and Ms Collard are expected to give evidence on the issue.
Mr Phelan is a businessman based in Northern Ireland who "spotted" the potential of the DRFC deal, and Mr Richardson was the vendor of DRFC.
Mr Tallents said there was a concern in 2002 that Kevin Phelan might have been passing information on to Mr Richardson. He said Mr Phelan and Mr Richardson were motivated by the desire to get money they felt they were owed. He said letters he had received from an associate of Mr Richardson, Mark Weaver, were "strange, rambling and bizarre. I would actually say they were quite worrying."
He said the men used tactics to create pressure that he had not witnessed before.
He agreed with Mr O'Donnell that Mr Richardson and Mr Phelan would know that mentioning Mr Lowry being in a room during discussions concerning DRFC, would have "caused trouble".
Mr O'Donnell said that their correspondence with the tribunal had never mentioned the matter. He said neither Mr Phelan, Mr Richardson nor Mr Weaver had agreed to give evidence.
Mr Tallents agreed that he had been interviewed in private by lawyers from the tribunal and two sets of notes were taken.
He had been shown the notes afterwards and they had contained inaccuracies which had been corrected. Mr O'Donnell said this was perfectly natural.
Mr Tallents said he had not been given Ms Collard's notes to review after the 2002 meeting.
He told Jacqueline O'Brien SC, for the tribunal, that he had no reason to believe that Ms Collard had not taken a careful note of the meeting.
Mr Tallents said he believed Mr O'Connor's involvement in the dispute with the DRFC vendors ended after Ms Collard contacted John Ryall, an accountant working for Denis O'Brien in Dublin, and expressed concern about Mr O'Connor being involved when he was not a representative of either the vendors or the purchasers.
