A director of a retail clothing company disappeared from outside the High Court yesterday after the court adjourned briefly to give him a "last chance" to reveal the whereabouts of £235,000. This money, his wife said, had been transferred out of their business.
Mr Justice O'Neill had just made an order committing Mr John Walsh, of Kilcullen, Ballyneety, Co Limerick, to prison for failing to comply with an order made earlier yesterday to reveal where the money was.
The judge said Mr Walsh was in flagrant contempt and he would commit him to prison until he revealed the location.
The hearing was then adjourned. When it resumed Mr Felix McEnroy SC, for Mrs Jean Walsh, Mr Walsh's wife, said he was no longer outside the court.
Earlier, Mrs Walsh, a director of Jeanswear Ltd, of Thomas Street, Limerick, applied for the freezing of funds she claimed belonged to the company and which had been lodged by Mr Walsh in an Irish Life and Permanent account. The money was no longer there, she said.
In an affidavit, Mrs Walsh said her husband recently became involved with an organisation for physical and mental well-being. Last September he spent £15,000 of the company's money attending a seminar in Egypt.
Mr McEnroy said it had been indicated that the organisation referred to was under the auspices of a business run by Mr Tony Quinn. His side suspected the money was now in the account of individuals in Egypt. From his client's perspective, this was not a marital case, it was a mental health case.
Mr Justice O'Neill made an order freezing the £235,000. In her affidavit, Mrs Walsh said she held 75 shares in the company and her husband 25. In recent times, her husband had behaved in a rather unusual manner.
Last Friday she discovered he had transferred £235,000 from the company's bank accounts with AIB in Limerick to an account which he had opened in his own name with Irish Life and Permanent.
Her husband informed her on Friday that he had taken the money. The bank advised her that her husband had drawn £96,000 from the company's current account with AIB and £139,000 from its deposit account to obtain a bank draft for £235,000.
When she raised the matter, her husband told her it was none of her business and that he proposed selling the company for £200,000. Last week her husband had retained cash takings for five days. About £22,000 in cash was unaccounted for. The company was healthy and viable.
Questioned by the judge, Mr Walsh accepted the money had been in an Irish Life and Permanent account but was now in a friend's name in another account. The judge directed that the money be returned immediately to the company and adjourned the case.
When the hearing resumed, Mr Walsh was not in court.