The wife of missing solicitor Michael Lynn has told the High Court she remains in touch with her husband and last saw him just over a week ago in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.
Ms Brid Murphy said she knows where her husband is, that he had collected her at the airport in Sofia from where she left on Monday week last and that he went to Portugal the following day. She remains married to Mr Lynn, she added.
In proceedings which opened today aimed at establishing entitlement to the €4.7 million proceeds of the sale last January of Glenlion House, Howth, the subject of alleged multiple mortgages by Mr Lynn, Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan has been asked to first determine Ms Murphy’s claim that she is entitled to a 50 per cent interest in the house.
Glenlion House was sold at auction for €4.9 million last January to meet some of Mr Lynn’s estimated €80 million debts. He was struck off the Roll of Solicitors by court order last week and was also fined €2 million.
Ms Murphy and a number of banks have made claims over the proceeds of sale of Glenlion, which amount to some €4.7 million after the estimated €200,000 costs of sale are deducted. The house was purchased by Mr Lynn and Ms Murphy for €5.5 million in Spring 2007.
Ms Murphy denies she has any liability for multi-million loans given by ACC Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society for the Glenlion purchase as she says she was unaware of such loans until last autumn, when matters concerning her husband’s practice were exposed. She accepts an indebtedness to Bank of Scotland, her counsel James Dwyer SC said.
ACC secured judgment for €3.76 million against Mr Lynn last November in relation to loans granted for the property and claims it has a first legal mortgage over the property, giving it priority over claims by INBS and BOSI.
Ms Murphy told the court that, when she married her husband in April 2006 having been with him since 2004, he was a solicitor with his own practice and property company and she trusted him completely in relation to financial affairs, including dealings for the purchase of Glenlion. She had worked as a nurse earning some €46,000 a year before their marriage but gave up work in early 2006.
She had left all financial dealings about Glenlion to her husband and was more concerned at the time of those dealings with health problems, she said. During a medical exmination in February 2007 for life assurance connected with the Glenlion purchase, a lump was discovered in her breast and she had had to undergo a biopsy and tests which ultimately produced good results.
Ms Murphy became upset at stages during her evidence and at one point during cross-examination asked counsel for ACC to understand she was not used to such surroundings. She said she had no involvement with her husband’s solicitor or property business and had never been involved in any property transaction prior to Glenlion. She also requested a short break because she felt hot.
She said she and her husband no longer live at their home at St Alban’s Park in Sandymount and that she was staying with family and friends and “bits and pieces of me are everywhere”.
Ms Murphy is claiming that several signatures purporting to be hers on a number of documents related to securing finance for that purchase from ACC Bank were forged. She claims she believed at the time the only loan on the house was one with Bank of Scotland Ireland and says she did sign a loan offer document from BOSI related to Glenlion.
The court heard that a documents expert has produced a report stating that certain signatures on loan documents relating to Glenlion which purport to be Ms Murphy’s are not her signatures. In cross-examination yesterday, Ms Murphy was not challenged about her claims in that regard by counsel for ACC.
In her evidence, Ms Murphy said she had never owned a house before she met him and subsequently moved into his home at St Alban’s Park in Sandymount. In September 2006, while she was accompanyng her husband on a business trip in eastern Europe, he showed her an advertisement for the Glenlion House and both thought it looked “really nice”.
Mr Lynn had contacted his frined John Mulkearns who negotiated the purchase of Glenlion, she said. She and Mr Lynn first saw the house when they travelled to Howth from Dublin Airport having returned from Romania. Her role relating to Glenlion was to organise renovations and to make it a home. Her husband’s role was to organise the financial side.
She understood they were to get a mortgage with BOSI and was unaware of any dealings with ACC until late last year.
Ms Murphy said she had attended a meeting in her husband’s office on April 19th 2007 which she had been told by him was about life insurance for the house. Her diary recorded that meeting was on April 19th and when she noted the date April 20th on a document she was asked to sign, she said it was April 19th but was told it didn’t matter.
She and her husband were asked several medical questions by a Mr Gerry Kelly, who was introduced by her husband and whom she believed was from Irish Life. She said Mr Kelly had filled in her answers on forms and she had signed them at his request.
Cross-examined by Mr John McBratney SC, for ACC, Ms Murphy said she only realised after meetings with her solicitor in Autumn 2007 that Mr Kelly was from ACC Bank. She agreed that three documents signed by her during that meeting had the name ACC Bank on them but said she had not read the documents at the time and just signed them in those places indicated to her by Mr Kelly.
She denied that she had received a business card from Mr Kelly at the outset of the meeting.
Also today, Ms Fiona McAleenan, who was employed as a solicitor in Mr Lynn’s practice from late 2004 to September 2007, said she was “led to believe” that Ms Murphy had signed a ACC Glenlion mortgage document in the presence of a witnessing solicitor.
Ms McAleenan said she was asked to give an undertaking to ACC’s solicitors to that effect and did so. She agreed she had not ascertained for herself that Ms Murphy had actually signed that document.
Ms McAleenan said that some documents related to the Glenlion purchase which stated they had been signed “in the presence” of Ms McAleenan were not signed by her and the purported signature was not her handwriting. She said one document stated the name of a firm as Fiona McAleenan & Co solicitors but there was no such firm.
The case continues.
