Thurles Information

The wife of a man, latter jailed for eight years for the rape of another woman in a Dublin hotel, is now seeking a High Court order preventing him from unlawfully taking control of the company in which they are both currently shareholders.

Mrs Fiona Brett claims that Mr Dermot Brett, sole director and 80% shareholder in Pharmafoods Ltd of Clonmel, Co Tipperary, operating from his prison cell, is behaving in a manner oppressive to her, as a 20% shareholder in the same firm.

Last November, at the Central Criminal Court, the fifty seven year old Mr Brett, with an address at Sweet Auburn, Carrickbeg, Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, received a jail sentence having been convicted on one count of rape at the InterContinental Hotel on January 11th, 2019. He had pleaded not guilty, and the victim consented to him being named following his conviction.

The court had heard that friends of the 20-year-old woman, who was a university student, had got a taxi for her, after she was asked to leave a pub because of her intoxicated state.

It is understood that she had exited the taxi without the knowledge of her friends and then met with Brett, who claimed he was concerned for her welfare because there were a number of other men in the vicinity who were showing an interest in her.

The university student had no recollection of meeting Mr Brett or indeed getting out of the taxi. This was confirmed by CCTV footage at the hotel where they arrived which showed that the individual raped was unable to stand upright on the night in question.

Mrs Brett claims that her husbands conviction and the subsequent reporting and naming post-trial, has cast a devastating impact on their business, resulting in the loss of all of their key customers and suppliers.

The company was once family owned and engaged in supplying food processing equipment and operating from Ivowen Retail Park, in Clonmel.

Mr Justice Brian Cregan granted counsel permission to serve the proceedings at short notice on the respondent and said the case can come back before the court next week.