Sean Fitzpatrick
Several changes were made to the name and address details on the account of former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick on the bank's internal record system, a trial has heard.
The trial of three Anglo officials accused of hiding Mr FitzPatrick's accounts from the Revenue in an alleged tax evasion scheme was told that some of the changes were made in the days following the closure of the account.
Former company secretary Bernard Daly (65) of Collins Avenue West, Whitehall, Dublin, former Chief Operations Officer Tiarnan O'Mahoney (54) of Glen Pines, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow and Aoife Maguire (60) of Rothe Abbey, South Circular Road, Kilmainham, Dublin have pleaded not guilty to seven alleged offences committed in 2003 and 2004.
The three are accused of trying to delete references to two accounts in the name of John Peter O'Toole, Mr FitzPatrick's brother-in-law, from Anglo's Core Banking System (CBS).
Mr Daly and Mr O'Mahoney also deny omitting the name of Mr O'Toole from a list provided to the Revenue Commissioners of people who held non-resident accounts worth more than €100,000 in 1995.
Mr O'Mahoney and Ms Maguire further deny attempting to delete six other accounts, connected to Mr FitzPatrick, from the CBS.
Continuing his evidence today the former fraud prevention officer, Patrick Peake, told the court that he examined records relating to an account set up in March 1998 called “The Sean FitzPatrick Trust and the Crohan O'Shea Trust” with an address “care of Anglo Irish Bank.”
A year later someone with the username AM1 made further changes to the account. Mr Peake said this was the login of one of the accused, Aoife Maguire. This user changed the name of the account to “Sean FitzPatrick/Crohan O'Shea Trust”.
A further change was made in 2003 when the address was changed to “care of Monica Carney”. The witness said Ms Carney was Mr FitzPatrick's personal assistant at the time.
In May 2004 someone accessed the bank's computer system using the login MC9. Mr Peake confirmed this was the same login used to make changes to other accounts connected to Mr FitzPatrick. He said it is a general login which could have been used by many people in the IT department.
On this occasion the name of Sean FitzPatrick was removed entirely from the account records and the name was changed to “Crohan O'Shea Trust” with an address in Killiney. Mr Peake confirmed this is Mr O'Shea's home address.
The next month the account was closed down. However a few days later on May 28, 2004 another change was made and Mr FitzPatrick's name was put back in. Three days later it was again taken off.
The trial continues before Judge Patrick McCartan and a jury of six men and six women.