A jury made up of 7 women and 8 men have been sworn in for the trial of former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick and two of his colleagues at the bank.
The former executives are charged with 16 counts of allowing Anglo Irish Bank provide unlawful financial assistance to 16 individuals to buy shares in the bank in July 2008.
Sean FitzPatrick, along with former Anglo chief financial officer Pat Whelan and former head of compliance Willie McAteer stood side by side in the dock as the charges were read out to them by the registrar at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
They replied 'not guilty' to each count. All 3 men wore dark suits.
The 16 people named in the charges are Patricia Quinn, Sean Quinn Junior, Collete Marie Quinn, Aoife Quinn, Brenda Quinn, Ciara Quinn, Paddy McKillen, Séamus Ross, Brian O'Farrell, John McCabe, Gerard Maguire, Patrick Kearney, Gerard Conlon, Gerard Gannon, Seán Reilly and Joseph O'Reilly.
Pat Whelan of Coast Road in Malahide also denies a further 7 charges of being privy to a fraudulent alteration of loan facility letters in October of that year.
It took 2 hours to swear in 15 jurors to hear the trial which will start next Wednesday. It had been expected that it would take longer.
This is the first time an enlarged jury panel of 15 will be used.
As proceedings got underway, Judge Martin Nolan told the jury panel 'all three men are entitled to a fair trial' and warned them that they should not serve as a juror if they own bank shares, have ever worked in financial services, or if they have formed, or expressed, strong views about Anglo Irish Bank in public.
Jury selection was briefly interrupted at the beginning, by prosecution counsel Paul O'Higgins SC over concerns about a posting on the web site Politics.ie which says 'I've been chosen to be on a jury. Hope we get to spend some time in a nice hotel. We all partied'.
Jury makeup
Judge Nolan asked if any of the jury panel had written the comment and when reassured that they had not, he continued with the process of empanelling the jury.
The selected jurors appear to be mostly middle aged or younger. Judge Nolan excused 131 people from serving after they said they had an issue with being on the jury.
Two people were excused for being employed with banks, and one person was excused for owning AIB shares.
The three accused men's legal teams objected to 17 people in total while the prosecution objected to two people.
Judge Nolan has given the jurors one last warning not to investigate the case themselves or even to read up on it. He said he will consider it a breach of their oath if they do.
Pictured above: Former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick
