Ex-manager at the K Club ‘repeatedly lied in High Court battle’
A FORMER K Club manager who claimed a greenkeeper had threatened him at the behest of tycoon Michael Smurfit has lost his High Court case – and could now face a seven-figure legal bill.
Peter Curran’s claims were ‘implausible’ and he had lied to the court repeatedly in his evidence, Judge Anthony Barr ruled yesterday.
The judge said Mr Curran was ‘capable of engaging in deceptive and manipulative conduct to achieve his desired goals’.
Judge Carr is to decide next week who foots the bill for the 25-day hearing. Such costs could be €1million or more.
Mr Curran, 51, from Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry, had claimed that he was threatened in the toilets of Punchestown Racecourse in May 2011 by greenkeeper Gerry Byrne.
He alleged Mr Byrne had 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 claimed this was a reference to statements he had made about call girls, sometimes sourced from Monaco and Spain, whom he alleged were given free use of hotel facilities at the fivestar golf resort in Straffan, Co. Kildare, which is owned by Dr Smurfit.
He said the statements were made in 2004 in legal exchanges concerning a separate action he had taken after his ‘unfair’ dismissal from his post as food and beverage manager at the K Club in 1998.
Following the alleged threat, he sued Mr Byrne, Dr Smurfit and the K Club in a personal injuries action. The claims were fully denied.
Mr Byrne said he would not even have recognised Mr Curran at the races, having not seen him in 12 years, while Dr Smurfit and the K Club said they knew nothing about the allegations.
Judge Barr yesterday ruled that while Mr Curran’s hypothesis was ‘just about possible, in reality it is somewhat implausible’.
Mr Byrne wept tears of relief as the judge said believed he had been telling the truth and that he did not recognise Mr Curran or issue any threat to him.
The judge said he wondered how Dr Smurfit would have had any motivation to have Mr Curran threatened over allegations made seven years earlier and not repeated. He said: ‘If [Dr Smurfit] had actually wanted to threaten or intimidate the plaintiff, it would have been far easier and more effective for him to have sent someone to Kerry to deliver a threat to the plaintiff directly.’
Judge Barr said he had taken into account evidence he had heard about emails sent to Mr Byrne, purporting to come from Dr Smurfit’s personal assistant. The emails were intended to persuade Mr Byrne to make a statement admitting he had threatened Mr Curran.
But the judge said they were sent from a bogus email address and that Mr Curran had sent the emails.
The judge said that as well as lying about this, Mr Curran had lied when telling the court that his doctor had advised him to wean himself off his psychiatric medication at the time he went to Punchestown, when no such advice had actually been given.
The judge pointed to delays in Mr Curran telling his psychiatrist about any incident at the races, and in introducing Dr Smurfit’s name into his recollection of events. ‘Its late insertion into the narrative is consistent with it being deliberately added to the story... so as to give the plaintiff a right of action against [Dr Smurfit],’ he said.
He said a claim that Mr Byrne had physically assaulted him, by pushing and shoving him, was made after his initial complaint.
The judge said that this implied it was a ‘gratuitous lie’, which was also physically unlikely as at 5ft 10in, Mr Byrne was several inches smaller than Mr Curran.
The judge said it was possible that Mr Curran had suffered an adverse psychological reaction to seeing Mr Byrne at the races. He said it was also possible that Mr Curran saw ‘an opportunity for him to mount a fraudulent claim’.
Judge Barr said: ‘This court does not have to decide which of these fraudulent possibilities is the more likely.
‘On the central issue, the court is satisfied that no threat was made by [Mr Byrne] to the plaintiff.’
‘It is somewhat implausible’