High court to hear lurid claims about K Club
‘Call girls’ given free use of golf resort, says ex-worker
K CLUB owner Michael Smurfit was ‘not unaccustomed to the company of two call girls’, it has been alleged at the High Court.
The claim was made during a personal injuries action brought by a former K Club employee, who also alleged that call girls, sometimes sourced from Monaco and Spain, were given free use of hotel facilities at the five-star golf resort.
Former food and beverages manager Peter Curran, 50, of Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry, claims he was threatened in connection with the call girl claim by Gerry Byrne, the K Club’s resort superintendent and green keeper.
Mr Curran has sued Mr Byrne, Dr Smurfit and the K Club for emotional pain and suffering following the threat, which he said occurred in the toilets at Punchestown races in May 2011.
All the claims are fully denied by the three defendants.
Mr Curran’s counsel, Kenneth Fogarty SC, said Mr Byrne had blocked Mr Curran’s exit from the toilets, and said he was carrying a message from Mr Smurfit.
He said Mr Byrne told his client: ‘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 Fogarty said his client was emotionally and psychologically frail at the time, as a result of his ‘unfair dismissal’ from his job at the K Club. His counsel said K Club management had previously sought to ‘finish off’ Mr Byrne’s career in the hotel industry, after he had raised concerns in 1998 about alleged ‘financial irregularities’ at the luxury resort.
These financial irregularities, including the use of K Club apartments for call girls, counsel said.
Mr Fogarty said Dr Smurfit and the K Club, which is located in Straffan, Co. Kildare, had ‘engaged in a systematic destruction’ of Mr Curran’s career, including telling prospective employers that he was ‘untrustworthy’.
He said the ‘bullying’ event in the Punchestown toilet was the culmination of this, and that the defendants’ motivation was anger at the statements his client had made about the presence of call girls at the K Club.
Noting the four senior counsel retained on behalf of the three defendants, Mr Fogarty said: ‘They [the defendants’ barristers] don’t care about Peter Curran, but they do care about the call girls. Part of some evidence you will hear from Peter Curran is that Michael Smurfit was absolutely aware this [activity] was taking place, and he himself was not unaccustomed to the company of two call girls on occasions.’
Mr Fogarty said that Mr Curran had taken a High Court action after his dismissal from the K Club, and that during legal exchanges in the run-up to that case he had been asked to outline certain financial irregularities which he claimed to have uncovered at the hotel.
‘The plaintiff made reference to the fact that call girls, sometimes sourced abroad, were given free use of hotel facilities at the K Club,’ he said.
Mr Byrne claimed owners of apartments received rental income from the K Club for their apartments from the Smurfit Group, but had not known what the apartments were used for.
Judge Anthony Barr said he wished to stick to the facts relating to the personal injuries claim.
‘I do not want to go into issues and facts as to whether some or all of the defendants at some stage in the past may have had some interaction with call girls,’ the judge said.
He added: ‘I am not going to get into an investigation as to whether there were or were not call girls at any stage in any premises run by the defendants... they are only of relevance so far as you say they were the basis for the motive for [Dr Smurfit].’
Judge Barr observed that the employment proceedings had settled in 2008, and asked why it took until 2011 for a threat to be made by the defendants ‘if they were so incensed’ by Mr Curran’s claims.
Mr Curran told the court that he had started his career as a chef in Edinburgh, winning the title of young chef of the year in 1997. He became Ireland’s youngest head chef after a move to Barberstown Castle, next door to the K Club, at the age of 21, before branching into hotel management.
He subsequently worked in the UK and Florida, and came home to Ireland to join the K Club in September 1997. He had been excited to work in Ireland’s top hotel, with the Ryder Cup on its way, he said.
He said his first concerns related to his staff, who felt they were not being paid properly for weekend work and overtime. He reported this to the general manager and the HR department, but nothing was done, he said, and he reported the matter for an external audit.
Shane Murphy SC, for Dr Smurfit, claimed that the plaintiff’s allegations were an abuse of the court process.
He said the issues had already been heard and resolved in the settlement of an Employment Appeals Tribunal case brought by Mr Curran over his alleged ‘unfair dismissal’, and in the settlement of a subsequent High Court case, which related to an alleged poor reference given for Mr Curran by the K Club when he sought new employment. The case continues.
‘Threatened in racecourse toilets’ ‘Financial irregularities’