I warned Smurfit on ‘call girls’ at K Club

Former manager says tycoon is a tyrannical bully

‘Dr Smurfit knows where to find you’

A FORMER K Club manager has told the High Court that he believed his former employer, business tycoon Michael Smurfit was a ‘tyrannical bully and a psychopath’.

Peter Curran says he was ‘fearful for his safety’ following an alleged threat at Punchestown Races in 2011 by a man saying Dr Smurfit had not forgotten statements he made about call girls.

‘I was fearful for my safety. I felt it was a threat to where I was living. I started to lock the window and doors, I double checked,’ he said in evidence.

Mr Curran said he had warned Dr Smurfit several times about the potential damage to his reputation of keeping call girls at the luxury resort.

‘I had conversations with Dr Smurfit about the conduct and the danger of that activity,’ Mr Curran said. However, he added ‘Threat’: Michael Smurfit that he never made any public statement about what he had witnessed.

Mr Curran, who is suing Dr Smurfit and the K Club for emotional distress, previously told the High Court that Dr Smurfit, the owner of the Kildare resort, had allowed foreign call girls to stay at the K Club and had visited them, a claim that the defence barristers has strongly reject.

On his second day of evidence, Mr Curran said he was a ‘broken man’ after he allegedly received a threat made on behalf of Dr Smurfit.

He said he felt ‘shell shocked’ after K Club resort superintendent Gerry Byrne allegedly passed on a threat from Dr Smurfit, in an encounter in the toilets at Punchestown Races in May 2011. Mr Curran told the court that he believed Dr Smurfit was ‘a tyrannical bully and a psychopath, and he could do damage to me’.

The court has heard the threat related to concerns Mr Curran had aired previously about ‘irregularities’ in the way the K Club was run – including an allegation that apartments were rented to call girls and paid for by the K Club. Mr Byrne is alleged to have said: ‘Dr Smurfit has not forgotten the statements about him and the call girls. Dr Smurfit knows where to find you and this is not over.’

Mr Curran said he had already been battling depression and anxiety after allegedly being ‘unfairly’ dismissed from the five-star resort, and that the threat pushed his fragile mental state to the point where he can never work again.

The 50-year-old, from Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry, is suing Mr Byrne, Dr Smurfit and the K Club Ltd, claiming damages for emotional pain and suffering. All his claims are fully denied by the three defendants.

Mr Curran was dismissed from the K Club in 1998, and took an Employment Appeals Tribunal case over his alleged unfair dismissal. This was settled, but he then took a High Court case over an alleged poor reference he was given by the K Club when he sought new employment. This was settled in 2008.

The case continues before Judge Anthony Barr.