How evidence was ‘foolishly and wrongly’ shredded

TWO years ago, the first trial of Seán FitzPatrick over his bank loans ended in high drama, when it emerged the lead investigator had shredded documents and subsequently checked into a psychiatric hospital.

It appeared to some courtroom observers that Kevin O’Connell had cracked under pressure, following six days of questioning over alleged flaws in the way the investigation had been carried out.

The news reached the courtroom in May 2015, when the then counsel for the DPP, Paul O’Higgins SC, relayed Mr O’Connell’s confession to Judge Mary Ellen Ring.

Fast forward to October 2016, and Mr O’Connell was back in the witness box for the pre-trial ‘voir dire’ – a trial within a trial, without the jury present.

The qualified solicitor – the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement’s legal adviser – told how on May 1, 2015, after he had concluded his testimony to the court, he returned to the ODCE ‘to tie up some loose ends’.

He recalled that ‘to my shock, fright and dismay, I realised there was a blue tray of papers that included some Anglo material which had not been scrutinised and considered before the voir dire had begun’.

He said he found 16 pages of notes in his own handwriting, relating to communications with Anglo’s auditors, Ernst & Young. The DPP was informed – but Mr O’Connell said he later, to his dismay, found ‘three or four’ more EY-related pages.

He said that ‘in my panic... I shredded the documents’. He admitted his actions had been ‘downright foolish as well as wrong’.

It emerged that Mr O’Connell was never subsequently charged with any offence relating to the destruction of documents involved in a criminal trial, or subjected to any disciplinary action from within the ODCE.