Roll Up! Roll Up! The Carnival is in Town

 


    My and our company's solicitor Mr. Cunningham has brought in two barristers (both boy barristers, as ever) to deal with our company's application to the Supreme Court. I only (reluctantly) agreed to take one on, a junior - because of the pain which seniors have caused us with their antics in the past. But it now appears that another senior wants in. 

   I instructed Mr. Cunningham on April 18th to apply immediately for an injunction against the 'settlement', based on my being a creditor of our company and the 'settlement' participants ignoring this fact. He doesn't think it will work. I don't know what to do.                                                                              Three days ago, I was informed that our leave to appeal has to be lodged by next Wednesday at the Supreme Court. No deadline was ever mentioned before. Mr. Cunningham will claim that he was misinformed by his previous counsel, who allegedly advised him that there were 28 days to deadline, when there were 21.

    Unless we are successful with one of these moves, then this is where we will stand. I always say 'we',  out of respect for the cooperative and the company (both proxies for the people of Athlone), because I always wanted to get the job done anonymously, get it done quickly and get out without anyone noticing. But it has all come back to me, that is how it was planned.                                                                        David Dully already has E110,000 of my money and will come back for a lot more. Paddy McCaul has E81,000 and will probably come back for more. Neil McNelis has E184,869 of my money and is chancing his arm for another E744,789.                                                                                                            Let's be clear. I will not pay one cent to any of these people. I assume that means that I will be going to jail for a long time. I have no problem with that, provided that it advances our case. But it is hard to find any reason why it should. I had planned to go on hunger strike in jail, that being the traditional last resort of people desperate to get justice, but it would probably be too late, maybe next year, and what newspaper would report it anyway? All any of it would achieve is permitting Richard Humphreys and his ghost writer to say ''See, we told you he was a felon''.  People will buy that.   

    I am in a position now where I can only trust myself and the people I love. Everything that is personal and sacred is at stake - my life, my family's good name, my beautiful family. I am tired of trusting in God. We have just three days left. No one can say that I haven't given everything a soul can give to our cause, all that I have left is my body so I will use that. It is slowly killing me anyway so I've decided to bring the last resort forward and begin a hunger strike today.                                                                            [I will take salt, if necessary, and water. I accept that it is difficult to establish the authenticity of a hunger strike outside of prison confinement. But my word must mean something. I plan to sleep outside the courts from June 1st. I may bring that forward too, that depends on how things are looking]             There are five conditions which will have to be met before it will end. These are as follows:                             1. That my personal solicitor Mr. Patrick Cunningham applies for                                  injunction(s) against Mr. Paddy McCaul to prevent him from participating in any committee to                oversee the distribution of the stadium property, as per the 'settlement agreement', and/or                       against Mr. David Dully to prevent him from nominating members of same committee, due to                 my rights as a creditor of  ATSL being infringed by the 'agreement'.   [update: my solicitor                        insists that it is not legally possible. My amateur understanding says that it is. Without                               independent legal advice (is there any such thing in Ireland?) we are stalled. It is funny how                    the cards always fall for the opposition]                                                                                                 2. That ATSL's solicitor Mr. Cunningham applies to the Supreme Court under the category of                        matters of general public importance on the following three points (subject to amendment):                (ii) The doctrine of indoor management cannot apply in the case of the company's creditors.                          T plaintiff exhibited evidence of same to the Court of Appeal with his affidavit of May 25th                        2020. The trial judge accepted by bona fide Mr. Molloy's evidence of having loaned the                            E50,000 security for costs to the company, on the basis that his averment did not differ                           from the evidence of Messrs. McCaul and MacGeehin. Mr. Molloy's status as a creditor                            cannot be deemed a jus tertii.                                                                                                           (iii) The Judgment does not distinguish between the club, with which the company has many                          contracts and on whose behalf the plaintiff purportedly initiated proceedings, and Athlone                        Town Athletic Football Club, an unknown entity. The 'agreement' follows from a settlement                    of  damages to the members of the latter entity, not to the club. A beneficiary cannot be c                        changed without an application before the court.                                                                               (iv) The Judgment does not adequately deal with the issue of the meeting of the company                               directors. It however appears to endorse the trial judge's analysis that a formal meeting of the                  board of  directors was not required to endorse the settlement. This analysis appeared to arise                 from the trial judge's reaction to the exposing in cross-examination of the false claims on                          affidavit by Messrs. McCaul and MacGeehin that a formal meeting and vote did in fact take                     place. The Judgment seems to rely on the assumption that an informal meeting did take                          place, but no evidence of such a meeting was provided to court. Clearly, the only informal                         meeting of the directors took place before the settlement talks commenced i.e. before                             Messrs. Temple and McCaul met with Messrs. O'Connor and Hayden.                                                            No credible evidence was provided to court to back up the Judgment's claim that ''a                             majority of the Board of the Company determined to settle the proceedings on the terms                           embodied in the statement''.                                                                                                                3. That ATSL's solicitor Mr. Cunningham applies to the Supreme Court for a full appeal with                              the following eight points:                                                                                                                     (i) It is unjust that the Judgment claims that the company's constitution was not furnished to the                   court when it was exhibited on July 16th 2020. It demonstrates that the company is a                           charitable purposes company with an explicitly public object.                                                                (ii) It is unjust that the stadium be taken away from the company and vested in an unknown entity                 on behalf of another unknown entity to be decided by a committee without terms of reference                 and effectively chosen by the plaintiff, a member of a private for-profit company.                              (iii) It is unjust that a majority of the directors of the company had no say in the terms of                                 settlement.                                                                                                                                                (iv) It is unjust that one unchallenged line in the plaintiff's High Court affidavit is deemed crucial                  when the unchallenged affidavits of Messrs. Temple and Molloy and the cross-examinations                    are ignored in their entirety.                                                                                                                 (v) It is unjust that the company was denied its right to legal representation through an                                    interpretation of one ambiguous email to which it was a stranger.                                                      (vi) It is unjust that not one of the members of the board of the company was consulted about the                   final unsigned terms of settlement                                                                                                         (vii) It is unjust that the company's chances in the main appeal were dismissed within a preliminary                 appeal.                                                                                                                                                    (viii) It is unjust that the plaintiff had liberty to give instruction past the point of the club's demise.

[update: The senior counsel is refusing to put his name to these conditions but says that we have legitimate grounds for appeal which will be lodged at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. This is strange, because his advice the day before (the only discussion we have had on the issues with our solicitor and now three barristers since last year's judgment) was that we had no grounds for appeal. The grounds they want to go in are good legalistic points, maybe 60-40 in our favour (they always are), but they do not challenge the dishonesty of the Court of Appeal Judgment in any way. This has happened in the past and I've always hoped that it would to be a mechanism through which justice can finally be served without the institution losing face.                                                                                                                     We have effectively an ultimatum to deal with: go the senior's way or go with nothing i.e. allow Dully and his comrades to have full say on who owns the stadium. As usual, I have no choice but to give in. And one thing should be noted with what (now) went in:  the infallible (and only) defence offered by our first senior doesn't get a mention at all. That was the 'failure' of the plaintiff to secure a representative order applied for by his counsel, then mysteriously withdrawn. But who knows, this senior, helping us pro bono (or will we get a bill for his services too, like with the previous pro bono guy?) may be the knight on a white steed we've been praying for.                                                                           Fairy tales do happen in the Supreme Court. At least that is what we told when an unusual revelation in an unusual cross-examination allowed the little guy Thomas Reid (who may be a national hero but hopefully understands that only the well-connected are allowed to justify their honour in the Four Courts) to defeat the big bad IDA working on behalf of the bigger badder multinational Intel. It was not all tears and hugs however, as E1.375 of taxpayers' money (not Intel's money) was handed over to his lawyers. And it should be noted that Mr. Reid had a camera crew with him; and it should also be noted that his recent case, sans camera crew and before Judge Richard Humphreys of all people, did not go so well - who'da thunk it?. Camera crew? We'd be delighted to get a paragraph in the Westmeath Independent. Who is going to read this stupid blog? Who is going to care? The people of Athlone? Did they say boo when their club was killed and senior football turned into a private income stream for the directors of Athlone Town AFC CLG? Why would they care if a property worth in the region of E10 million (and worth precisely nothing to me and us) ended up in the hands of the same people?]           

    4. That the Gardai honour Garda Trisha O'Connor's promising (most recently on June 8th 2021)                     that I will be allowed to make a statement concerning fraud against our company by a                               solicitor and a barrister.                                                                                                                           5. That the FAI provides ATSL with copies of all of the Pre Season contracts with the club and                     with any entity affiliated to the club - such as the business name Athlone Town AFC, Athlone                   Town AFC CLG, Athlone Town Athletic Football Club, Callaview Ltd. and Dama Management               Ltd.

  It should be noted that the whole five of these 'demands' put together do not add up to justice (a basic human right available to serial killers) but only to a shot at getting justice. I am far from optimistic about getting any of them. 

  A lot of these legal points may not be admissible to the Supreme Court. Preceding barristers who didn't raise certain points and who didn't initiate appeals at the right time can easily sabotage their client's case that way. The client only gets to pay them and look on, often watching bizarre acts of self-abasement, then some future ex-barrister judge will say that the client didn't say this or that or do this or that so she/he/it can't object to what is blatantly unjust. Meanwhile, solicitors have a kind of diplomatic immunity that comes from operating in the barristers' shadow. That means they can get up to all kind of nefarious shit, which the client knows nothing about but is later allotted responsibility for by the courts - because we were apparently 'instructing' them. And all of them can give you false advice which will become your responsibility if you fall for it. That is how the game is rigged, folks.

   ''A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many'' - General Smedley Butler.

 Justice is one of the few things worth dying for. As we are all the time effectively advised,  just because a judge agreed five years ago to meet up with a barrister for a chat and a round of golf and just because four years ago a number of lawyers got together to plant evidence against us, then justice has been taken off the table forever and we are obliged to deal with the financial fallout from that. In other words, the decision was made at the start of proceedings. Everything that happened afterwards was simply an excuse to build up costs, with judgments that cherry-pick the facts and shoehorn legal precedent onto the original decision.          

 In trying to expose the corruption of our barrister-controlled legal system, I've been guilty of provocation, in implying that all of them are corrupt. That was a failed attempt to push some of the honest ones into standing up and at least saying something, rather than letting the cancer take over the entire body. One I believe to be honest is the President of the High Court, which is why I asked her (and will ask her again) to call for a full criminal investigation into the conduct of our case.                                 It is considered is a strange idea in Ireland, the notion that we have a right to hold such people to account. But in the ordinarily corrupt United States, bigshot lawyers like Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort have all done time in recent years for various kinds of fraud, as have judges like Sylvia Ash, Mark Ciaverella, Michael Conahan and Jessica O'Brien. What makes our crowd so special? We are better than that. 

   My job is to break the protective wall that surrounds the corruption. They despise me for it, and I wear that hate as a badge of honour. I don't expect to win, but the fight is the thing. I love my country and I am a good man, from a good family. I work without pay or expenses for a good company which looks after a sporting facility on behalf of the people of my town. It has been a honour to have been a part of that. 







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