Foster’s close aide denies making Moy Park ‘sales pitch’

The inquiry chair said: “You are the man who originally recommended the meeting with Moy Park. You are the man with the relations all of whom worked for Moy Park. In this email of yours, Moy Park are the only people who are identified as requiring 3,000 hours.”

Dr Crawford said he was just trying to put a suggestion on the table that would result in the submission going through and ending the spike in applications to the scheme. His proposal was rejected by DETI officials.

The inquiry heard that the managing director of the Hastings hotel group, Howard Hastings, emailed Dr Crawford telling him about abuse in the RHI scheme due to the lack of cost controls.

Mr Hastings had been warned about this by boiler installer Brian Hood.

But the former DUP special adviser said he didn’t inform anyone in Deti about this email because he had already expressed concern to officials about abuse of the scheme.

Asked if he could have done anything more to alert Deti officials about allegations of fraud in the summer of 2015, he said: “With hindsight we can look at things differently. Yes, it probably would have been better if it was passed on and I apologise that I didn’t do that.”

Dr Crawford denied there had been a row between him and David Sterling, the current head of the civil service, over his family RHI connections.

Former DUP minister Jonathan Bell claimed a loud verbal altercation took place between the pair with Mr Sterling accusing the former DUP Spad of having kept the scheme open to benefit his relatives.

Another witness suggested to the inquiry that the argument had been between Dr Crawford and another senior civil servant Mike Brennan.

The former DUP adviser said no row had taken place. “I do recall one conversation with David Sterling... where (he) alerted me to the fact that Andrew McCormick was blaming me for the delays to the scheme. I remember