We’ll sue publican who dropped €3m f ire claim ... after damning CCTV
Owner and brother in darkened pub 57 seconds before f ire
AVIVA Insurance says it is seriously considering suing a Donegal publican spotted on extraordinary CCTV footage at his multi-million-euro pub – 57 seconds before a blaze started that ripped through the building.
Owner Séamus McLaughlin has now withdrawn his attempts to claim €3m for the blaze at the Waterfront pub in Moville in 2009, and Aviva wants the gardaí to reopen the case.
If they don’t the company has told the Irish Mail on Sunday they will give ‘serious consideration’ to taking a case against Mr McLaughlin. The CCTV footage, from the night of the fire, shows the publican and his brother Kevin in the dark with flashlights in the otherwise empty building.
After several minutes, they leave the building, and less than a minute later smoke billows from it.
John Sunderland, property claims manager with Aviva, described the video, which was played repeatedly in court.
He told the MoS: ‘First of all we see our policy-holder (Séamus McLaughlin) walking around with a flashlight. Then we see a man who we later identified as his brother. Originally, it looked like 90 seconds after they left the building that the first smoke was seen, but because of the pixellation of the images, we later reduced that time to 57 seconds.’
Mr McLaughlin attempted to retrieve the CCTV footage from Aviva, taking his case to the Supreme Court which found against him in 2011.
And earlier this month, his legal bid to have his claim paid out ended in the High Court when he withdrew his case.
That followed the defeat of an application to have the CCTV evidence ruled inadmissible.
He is now facing a legal costs bill estimated at more than €1m after Judge Séamus Noonan awarded costs of the 21-day case against him and in favour of Aviva. Mr Sutherland said Aviva was disappointed when the DDP decided not to proceed with a criminal prosecution against Mr McLaughlin and his brother in 2010.
He said he now hopes the gardaí will reopen the investigation, adding: ‘It’s quite rare that we get a case like this, where the policy-holder can be proved to be somewhere where he said he definitely was not.
‘The gardaí arrested Mr McLaughlin and his brother and interviewed them separately but they chose to say nothing. A file was sent to the DPP but they didn’t think there was enough evidence to win a case. We’re hoping that decision will now be reconsidered. We would hope the gardaí will reopen the case and we will supply them with new information they need.’
If they don’t the company will consider their own action.
‘It’s something we’ve thought about and given consideration to,’ he said.
‘We would take an action like this in defence of our policy-holders, our decent customers, so that they don’t have to carry the cost.’
Mr Sunderland said: ‘When this claim first came in and when we first went up to Donegal, there was nothing there that jumped out at us to say this was suspicious.
‘But we were able to recover some of the CCTV which was burned in the fire, we could read four out of six drives. It was only prudent to have these examined by our forensic experts. They went to the UK and when the people there told us what they’d found, we went straight to the gardaí.’
He said Aviva now has a 54-person fraud unit, working to crack down on cases like this.
‘This kind of thing is one of the biggest drivers of hikes in premium prices, fraudulent claims and exaggerated claims. We are determine to recover all our costs from Mr McLaughlin,’ he said.
During the hearing, the High Court heard that Mr McLaughlin had put the Waterfront on the market in 2007 for €3.5m but received no offers.
He then dropped the price to €3m but again there were no offers. The following year, the pub burnt down.
Eyewitnesses said they saw Mr McLaughlin’s legal team spend about 90 minutes in heated debate with him in the car park of the High Court before he decided to withdraw his legal action.
‘In dark with flashlights in the empty building’ ‘Decent customers should not have to carry the cost’