Father accused of ‘stalking’ daughter denies using leaked Bank of Ireland data to find his girl

The man made the denial in a statement to the Irish Independent following a report last week about a lawsuit being pursued by the woman and her partner.

The couple are suing Bank of Ireland after the woman’s father claimed he obtained a transaction history report from someone in the bank, allowing him to trace her as it provided the location of ATM transactions she made in Spain and England.

She has said the couple left Ireland at the time to escape her father’s “inappropriate, manipulative and paranoid” behaviour, only to be tracked down by him to a hotel in Bristol in 2017.

It is claimed the father was accompanied at the hotel by the woman’s estranged mother, who she alleges sexually abused her as a child.

In the action, the couple claim UK police said it was “probable” the woman’s father gained access to her account and traced her location “by reference to banking transactions”.

The High Court has heard the bank acknowledged the woman’s information was provided to a third party, but it had not been possible to determine who had printed the transaction history report.

An internal investigation found it could only have been printed at one of two locations – a branch in Ballymahon, Co Longford, or the Bank of Ireland Operations Centre in Dublin – but it could not be determined who had logged in to access the account.

However, in a statement, the father claimed the allegations against him were inaccurate and misleading.

“I did not receive any information from Bank of Ireland, as claimed by the plaintiffs,” he said.

The man said he did not know anyone in either of the two bank premises, and he was alerted to the couple’s presence in Spain and England by a friend of theirs who supplied him with their contact details and locations.

He claimed he had a legitimate reason for travelling to see them in England in 2017.

He also claimed “a lot of documentation”, including bank documents, had been left in his home by the couple when they went to live in Spain, while other documents had been sent to him by a serviced office in Dublin the couple had used.

“I made notes on these documents, which were retrieved at a later date from my home by the plaintiffs,” he said.

The case has been before the High Court twice in the past week, most recently on Thursday when Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan granted an application allowing the bank to offer a payment to settle the case without an admission of liability.

But the judge ruled the “offer of tender of payment” could only be made after the discovery process in the case is completed.

The application was opposed by the couple, represented by Coleman Legal LLP, and they were awarded their costs as they had been successful in having conditions attached to the offer of tender.

In the lawsuit, the couple claim the bank unlawfully disclosed the woman’s personal data and facilitated unlawful surveillance, tracing, stalking and harassment.

In a defence filing, the bank, represented by Arthur Cox LLP, said it was not denied that internal documents could only have been obtained from the bank.

However, it said it was not admitted the bank extracted or leaked the personal data.