THE personal assistant to Mr Noel Smyth. Mr Ben Dunne's solicitor, explained how she arranged the transfer of money from and between offshore bank accounts.
Ms Pauline Finnerty said the beneficial owner of Tutbury Ltd in the Isle of Man was Mr Ben Dunne. Mr Smyth would contact her and tell her when his client wanted information about the account. She would contact either Mr Albert Dudgeon or Mr Mike Rayton in Rae Brothers' Bank in the Isle of Man. Tutbury had directors in the Isle of Sark.
On one occasion Mr Smyth rang her from Rome and said there was a piece of paper with instructions for a payment to be made from Tutbury. She found it, discovered there was no amount on it, and rang him back. Either she contacted Mr Dunne, or he did, and she was told the amount was £200,000. When shown the note with instructions about payment, she identified the writing with the amount as hers.
She also told the tribunal about seeking three bank drafts in the names of T. Scott, B. Montgomery, and M. Blair. Tutbury was to be debited. The drafts were couriered to the office and she handed them to Mr Smyth.
She said she had been asked to open the Badgworth account and to transfer money from Tuthury to it. Initially, she thought Mr Ben Dunne was the beneficial owner of this company. "Later it transpired it was Mr Michael Lowry's basically, from the account being closed and the money payable to Mr Lowry," she said.
Mr Donal O'Donnell, counsel for Mr Lowry, asked her if she understood this account to belong to Mr Dunne. She said that while it was open Mr Smyth wrote to Mr Lowry about it several times, so she assumed it was his. Mr O'Donnell asked her if Badgworth had the same directors as Tutbury, and she agreed it had.
Mr Denis McCullough, counsel for the tribunal, asked her if directors were assigned to such companies, based in the Isle of Sark. She agreed. He said the directors of these two companies were a Ms Faul and a Ms Anderson.
"The company is then deemed nonresident for Isle of Man purposes, he said.
She agreed that because of the connection with Tutbury, she had originally thought Badgworth was Mr Dunne's, but during the course of its operation she thought it belonged to Mr Lowry, and he would have the ultimate instructions about the money in it.