Jury in David Drumm trial views Central Bank account statements showing €7.2bn payments
The jury at David Drumm's conspiracy to defraud trial heard evidence from a former manager at the Central Bank, on day 70 of the hearing at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Pamela Lennon, the first prosecution witness from the Central Bank, said she oversaw a shared network of computers, accessed by all Central Banks across Europe, in 2008.
She said this network captured the real-time balances of individual banks in each member state.
“These records gave a read out of how much money a particular bank had on a given day,” she said.
David Drumm (51) of Skerries, Co Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with former bank officials Denis Casey, William McAteer, John Bowe and others to defraud depositors and investors at Anglo by “dishonestly” creating the impression that deposits in 2008 were €7.2 billion larger than they were.
The former Anglo Irish CEO has also pleaded not guilty to false accounting on December 3, 2008, by furnishing information to the market that Anglo's 2008 deposits were €7.2 billion larger than they were.
Today, Ms Lennon told Mary Rose Gearty SC, prosecuting, that the data was transferred to warehouses in Germany, France and Italy for storage at the end of each banking day.
She said this data could be extracted from the system at a later time, but could not be changed by her or any of her staff.
The jury viewed Central Bank account statements for September 29 and 30, 2008, which showed details of the €7.2bn payments made between Anglo and Irish Life and Permanent.
Ms Lennon agreed with Ms Gearty that there was a huge number of transactions on Anglo's account on September 29, 583 in total.
She said the statement of September 29 also showed a deposit of €1bn paid to Anglo by the Central Bank, which was “an overnight facility” which incurred a fee.
During cross-examination, Ms Lennon agreed with Tessa White BL, defending, that the importance of a timestamp on each transaction was to show that monies settled in real time.
She further agreed that Anglo was eligible to receive funding from the European Central Bank, and did receive €1bn on September 29, 2008.
Mr Drumm accepts that the multi-million euro transactions took place between Anglo and ILP in 2008 but disputes that they were fraudulent or dishonest.
The trial is now in its fourteenth week, and continues before Judge Karen O'Connor and a jury of ten men and four women.
