A County Cavan farmer has said that Beverley Cooper-Flynn knew that the money he was investing in a CMI Investment Policy in 1996 came from his bogus non-resident account. Patrick Duff, a farmer and businessman from Bailieboro, has told the High Court that he invested £308,000 in the offshore policy. He says that Ms Cooper-Flynn had discouraged him from availing of the tax amnesty. He claimed that she told him that if he left the money in the bogus account, the Revenue Commissioners would become aware of it, and that the best place for it was CMI in the Isle of Man.
Mr Duff was the first witness for the defence in Beverly Cooper-Flynn's libel action against RTÉ and retired farmer James Howard. The 50-year-old bachelor has amassed considerable wealth through his many farming and business activities. Undeclared money that he made buying and selling horses and cattle was hidden in a bogus non-resident account at his local National Irish Bank branch in Bailieboro. His account was in the name of John Duff with an address in London. He was content to leave a sum of £174,000 in that account in the mid-1990s but the bank was anxious to get it moved and they introduced him to Beverley Cooper-Flynn.
Mr Duff said that he met her about ten times from the end of 1991 until 1996, when he finally bought a CMI Personal Portfolio. He initially invested £168,000 from the bogus account in August 1996, followed later by a further investment of £140,000. He also claimed that NIB topped up both investments by over £2,000. He says that Ms Cooper Flynn was aware that the initial sum invested came from his 'John Duff' bogus non-resident account, which he said he opened to avoid paying DIRT tax. Ms Cooper-Flynn has denied this.
He also claimed that at a 1993 meeting when he was considering availing of the tax amnesty, Ms Cooper-Flynn said "Oh No No No why avail of the amnesty and lose 15% of your money when you can put it into a fund that I will manage for you?" He said that Ms Cooper-Flynn was advising him to put money into a CMI personal portfolio. It was pointed out that his money would go to the Isle of Man in a numbered account and his name would never again appear on it. When he died it would not form part of the estate for tax purposes.
But in 1998 when the controversy about CMI broke on television, Mr. Duff made a voluntary disclosure to the Revenue. He paid out over £350,000 in tax and capital gains. It emerged during cross-examination that Mr Duff and several other investors are suing NIB, claiming that they were given bad advice.
When Ms Cooper-Flynn's counsel Garret Cooney said to Mr Duff that he had not only made false returns to the Revenue but also told lies to his accountant, he replied, "No I never told him lies, I never told him anything about the undeclared money."
