First published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 25/04/2010
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By: Michael O’Farrell and Barbara Jones
THE HIGH Court has rejected a bid by Irish charity boss Michael Meegan to gag an extensive Irish Mail on Sunday investigation into a series of allegations of sexual assault, financial impropriety and inappropriate behaviour against him.
Having read more than 100 pages of affidavits and exhibits submitted by both sides last weekend, High Court President Judge Nicholas Kearns ruled on Monday that the MoS had gathered sufficient evidence to defeat the injunction application and reasonably defend any future defamation actions. On that basis, Judge Kearns ruled that Meegan – whose charity fundraisers have been supported by celebrities ranging from Chris de Burgh to Britney Spears – was not entitled to an injunction to prevent publication even though he denied all of the allegations against him.
During the hearing, the court heard that six Kenyan men, all of whom had worked for Meegan’s charity ICROSS – International Community for Relief of Starvation and Suffering – had made signed and recorded statements to the MoS alleging sexual abuse, assault and inappropriate behaviour.
According to the evidence seen by the court, the allegations of assault stretch back almost a quarter of a century, having begun in 1986.
One of the men subsequently withdrew his statement although a former ICROSS board member and a one-time volunteer had in their sworn affidavits confirmed elements of it.
Meegan also provided evidence in the form of sworn affidavits that another of the men – Maasai tribesman Meriape Ole Sangaire – had retracted his allegations twice in the past.
In his own sworn testimony to the court, however, Meriape said the retractions were forgeries to which he had never signed his name.
‘I reiterate that Michael Meegan has sexually abused all of us and I am willing to repeat this at any forum,’ his affidavit reads. ‘I am craving for justice and I hope that it will be done. I have repeatedly sought help in vain.’ One of the accusers, Nixon S Jacob, said in his statement given to the court that he was caned for Meegan’s pleasure.
‘He told me if I wanted money, I should strip for him and let him cane me. He told me to take down my trousers right there in his office.
‘He took a bamboo stick and gave me about 10 strokes on my bare buttocks. Then he gave me the money. He was like a sadist. He had taken off his shirt and was wearing just tracksuit bottoms. He became sexually aroused.’ Nixon’s evidence also informed the court of other approaches.
‘One night I went to bed. I was a bit drunk.
He came to my bedside, tried to wake me up.
He was naked and said, “I need you to come with me. I need you to hold my penis”.
‘I said, “No”.’ Nixon’s statement included allegations that charity money was used to fly sexual partners from abroad to Meegan.
‘I remember seeing him looking at gay websites with naked young men on them. Some were white Europeans and others were from Asia. He made contact and paid the fares for some of them to come over. We all met them.’ Evidence provided to the court by another man, Paulo Lerat, included similar allegations.
‘I was in Meegan’s clinic/office and he told me to take my clothes off, he intended to cane me. He was trying to joke about it.
‘I took my rungu – the Maasai club we always carry with us – and I hit him hard on the hand. He ran into the next room and closed the door.’ Details of a statement from another accuser, Haron K Wambiri, were also provided to the court.
In his statement – a synopsis of which was provided to the court – Haron alleges he was responsible for ‘handing out cash for guys who agreed to be caned’.
‘There would be ksh50 for being caned with trousers on; ksh100 for being caned on bare buttocks; and an extra ksh50 if Meegan was allowed to fondle their bare buttocks still hot from caning.’ Haron’s evidence also included allegations that he cooperated with Meegan in creating ‘ghost projects’ for ICROSS in order to justify donor funds.
In an affidavit provided to the court from Kenya, Meegan denied outright all of the allegations and accused two named fellow aid workers from what he called ‘a rival’ NGO of conducting a 25-year smear campaign against him.
On balance, however, the court ruled that the MoS had provided sufficient supporting evidence in the form of original documentation and affidavits from independent witnesses to show that it had a likely chance of defending any libel claim.
This evidence included a 1986 letter, signed by Meegan, in which he acknowledged and confirmed to one of his own board members that he was the subject of a police investigation.
It also included an affidavit from one-time ICROSS board member Dr Vincent Kenny who travelled to Kenya in 1986 to help Meegan deal with the sexual allegations against him.
Evidence from a former board member who confirmed Meegan had insisted on sleeping with an employee in her home in Dublin, and a former volunteer, now working for Concern, who swore Meegan had made a casual sexual advance toward him, was also included.
In addition, a British Labour Party peer, Lord Nicholas Rea, provided an affidavit in which he confirmed that after a visit to ICROSS he had found a plea for help in his jacket pocket from a male member of staff whom Meegan had teased during dinner about ‘the size of his enormous penis’.
The signed note, the court was informed, read: ‘Michael Meegan is a liar and a cheat. Don’t believe anything he says.
‘He also molests the boys.’ Other evidence provided to the court by the MoS included the complete details of a five-page 2006 letter from the Irish and British board of ICROSS to Meegan in which the board requested Meegan’s response to a large number of allegations that had come to its attention.
Evidence before the court showed that this letter – sent to Meegan as a draft form to allow him to comment – included allegations of ‘financial impropriety’, ‘character/integrity issues’ and ‘sexual impropriety’.
The letter asks Meegan about newspaper revelations that he had exaggerated his academic qualifications and ‘misleading’ claims by Meegan that he lives amongst the Maasai while in fact he lives in an urban compound.
It also raises allegations involving ‘the skimming off of ICROSS funds for personal use’ and that employees have allegedly been ‘induced to engage in false reporting about the use of donated funds and the effectiveness of projects’.
Further details of the letter, opened as evidence in court, involve what the board referred to as ‘a constant stream of allegations that Mr Meegan likes the company of younger men’.
The letter refers specifically to an allegation that Meegan shares a bed with a named ICROSS employee.
The court learned that the board, in its letter, expressed uneasiness about the number of allegations against Meegan, something the letter says has ‘been compounded by the perception that Mr Meegan has been less than open and honest’.
Further correspondence deemed Meegan’s response to the allegations as ‘wholly inadequate’ before the board closed the British arm of the charity down completely.
Meegan also provided affidavits from a number of individuals who alleged that the MoS had offered large sums of money to anyone who would make false statements against Meegan.
This allegation was refuted by MoS editor Sebastian Hamilton who swore an affidavit confirming that no inducements or payments had been offered or made by the newspaper in return for any statements.
In his affidavits, Meegan also alleged that his accusers were making up false stories in the hope of being able to sue for compensation.
However, Meegan’s legal team admitted that three weeks ago ICROSS Kenya had tried to get Kenyan police to arrest his accusers and said they wanted the investigation by the MoS gagged until those concerned had been put on trial and were convicted or cleared.
Meegan denied that a risqué Gaydar profile of him submitted as an exhibit was genuine and argued that the revelation of his sexuality would be a breach of his privacy which would make it impossible for him to remain in Kenya.
However, Judge Kearns threw out Meegan’s case, saying the draconian gag order sought was not appropriate or justified in the circumstances.
He awarded costs against Meegan, saying his legal team had misled the court during a brief earlier application in which the amount of time needed to hear the case had been exaggerated.
Judge Kearns said there was an obligation on Meegan’s side to ‘make full and honest disclosure to the court’ in their application for an injunction against the newspaper group but ruled: ‘This has not happened in this case. I am particularly angered by the fact that on Friday, when this matter was brought before the court at 12.45, I was assured by counsel for the applicant [Meegan] that this was a matter that would take two days.
‘This was a completely false representation.’
‘I became Meegan’s first victim’
IN A statement provided to the court as evidence, former ICROSS worker Meriape Ole Sangaire outlined the allegations he had made against Meegan. ‘In 1986, he began harassing me by touching me continually. I asked him not to but he continued, telling me I had sexy buttocks and telling me to touch his secret parts.
‘I became Meegan’s first victim, I realise now. One night he pulled me into his bedroom and tried to force me to take off my trousers, trying to rip them off me. I resisted him, but although I was strong he was stronger.
‘Even now I have problems with sex, problems I do not even discuss with my wife.
‘Everything he did to me was against my customs, my family, my Christian religion. It was a terrible abuse.’ The statement, backed up by a sworn affidavit, considered by the court also included allegations of caning.
‘He said if I needed money I should let him cane me. He forced me to partially strip and he caned me. I was angry and wanted to hit him but I knew I would end up in jail. He was the powerful white man and the police would believe him, not me.
‘He gave me Ksh1,000. I still have the scars on my buttock and inner thigh from his caning me.
‘I wanted to go back to the police and insist they arrest him but I was worried that he was bribing someone and I would be arrested instead of him.’ Meriape’s statement also made the court aware of alleged deceptive practices at ICROSS.
‘He started telling everyone that he was “living with the Maasai”. This was a lie, he was living in a house. He never slept in a manyatta [Maasai community] in his whole time in Kenya.’ Meegan’s legal presentation included claims that Meriape has twice previously admitted making false claims. However, Meriape swore a separate affidavit, shown to the court, saying that these claims were untrue and that documents used to back them up – which used an incorrect ID number and even spelt Meriape’s name wrong – were forgeries.
‘He paid Ksh20 to cane me on my naked buttocks’
IN A statement presented to the court, one-time ICROSS worker James Njenga recalled alleged sexual approaches by Meegan. ‘My job included making tea for him. One day when I was taking tea to him in his bedroom, he pulled me into his bed and tried to kiss me. I tried to resist but he was very powerful. ‘ James’s court statement continued: ‘There was a time when I was sharing a bedroom with Laurence, a friend and colleague. We guys would quite normally sleep close together. In the middle of the night, Meegan got into our bed between us. He wore the bottom half of a tracksuit.
‘He tried to kiss us…
Laurence was furious and pushed him out of bed, shouting and screaming. Meegan was very aroused. He was repeating: ‘Tigreu!
Tigreu!’ which means Shut your mouth in Maasai.
‘Several times he would take his bamboo cane to me and hit me hard on my naked buttocks. Then he would give me Ksh20. This was a horrible experience for me.
‘I did not tell my parents. In my culture it is completely shameful to have any sexual relations with another man, for cash or for anything. I felt very confused and very ashamed. This is how I feel today.’ The statement, read by the court, also included other allegations. ‘A French guy came to do some work for ICROSS and was sleeping every night with Meegan. Also I saw him looking at a gay website on his laptop several times. He was looking at pictures of young guys, some white, some Asian. He made contact… and paid their fares to come over to ICROSS where they slept with him. I remember them well.’
‘He massaged my shoulders and said I should join him in his bed’ IN A sworn affidavit and a letter from 2005 Brion Ó Loinsigh – now working with Concern in Chad – informed the court of his concerns about Meegan and his friendship with Elle Kihara, a local man.
‘Mike operates what felt like to me a concentration camp. He engages in complete and utter brainwashing. Firstly, you’re not allowed to have any thoughts of your own, you must share them, if you don’t answer his questions, or reveal your thoughts to him he tries to emasculate and humiliate you in front of others.’ Mr Ó Loinsigh’s court evidence also dealt with inappropriate sexual behaviour while he and a colleague were in Africa.
‘Talking to Brett and myself once, he asked Brett when was the last time he masturbated and what was he thinking of. One night while in the main house and not the guest house, Mike came in drunk and sat on the couch and we were watching a movie.
‘At the end of the movie, he asked me if I was okay in my room by myself. I said I was fine. He started to massage my shoulders and asked if I was sure, that I could always sleep in Mike’s bed with himself and Elle. I said No, I was fine, that I liked my small room. He said we have to look after the little baby now.
‘While on a trip to Nakumatt with an ICROSS worker and Elle, Mike said, “Brion, do you use a dildo?”.’
‘He agreed to quit Kenya in 1986 over sex claims. Months later he was back’
IN A sworn affidavit to the court, Dr Vincent Kenny, one of Ireland’s most respected aid experts, recounted his experience of dealing with sexual allegations against Meegan.
‘In 1986, I became aware that allegations of a sexual nature had been made by a number of young males working in the ICROSS project in Kenya against the founder and administrator of ICROSS Kenya, Michael Meegan, whom I knew personally.
‘Mr Meegan appeared concerned for his own safety because these allegations were of a sexual nature. He was looking for advice and he wanted me to help him.
‘I then spoke with Mr Shaw who said he was with CID in Nairobi. Mr Shaw outlined a series of sexual allegations against Mr Meegan. He said the complainant was Meriape Ole Sangaire, a member of staff in ICROSS Kenya whom I knew. Mr Shaw said the allegations were very serious and would, if proven, result in a jail sentence for Meegan.’ Dr Kenny’s evidence to the court also told of the response of the ICROSS board. ‘Mr Shaw expressed concerns about the impact of the allegations on the expatriate community in Kenya and the possible reaction against missionaries and priests in particular. Mr Shaw was impressing on me and the ICROSS board the need to take the situation seriously.
‘When I arrived in Kenya, I told Mr Meegan that he would have to withdraw from Kenya and return to Ireland. The reason for this was not alone the sexual allegations that had been made but also the fact that the board of ICROSS has real concerns relating to the policy and procedure put in place by Mr Meegan in ICROSS… I proposed that Mr Meegan withdraw from Kenya with some dignity and that this would minimise the scandal on the expatriate community and the dangers therein.
‘Mr Shaw appeared satisfied with the proposal and indicated he would not prevent Mr Meegan from leaving the country. Mr Shaw gave me the impression the allegations were credible and that Michael’s character had been discredited by them. He also indicated that Mr Meegan should not be operating in Kenya and that his actions were bringing the Non-Government Organisation, its work and the people dependent on it into disrepute.
‘I informed the board that Mr Meegan was advised to leave Kenya and return to Ireland and that he had agreed to do so in the interests of ICROSS.
‘Some weeks later, I received letters and other information to the effect that Mr Meegan had returned and was interfering with the work of the charity – I was disappointed that, despite his agreement, Mr Meegan had returned to Kenya. There was disagreement between me and other members of the board on these subjects, as a result of which I resigned from the board.’
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First published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 25/04/2010
How the MoS won free speech battle
For over five years MichaelMeegan MichaelMeegan has been using legal threats to silence critics and suppress a string of claims about theway he about theway he behaveswith the behaveswith the young Kenyan men he ismeant men he ismeant to be helping. But now the High Court has ruled thatwe have the that we have the right to tell all…
By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigative Correspondent
IT WAS, perhaps, ironic that a man who for years allowed himself to be falsely portrayed as a Christian Brother chose Holy Thursday to make his stand.
For that was the day Michael Meegan, 50, decided to take the desperate course of asking the High Court to stop this newspaper publishing a series of devastating allegations against him.
It was the last throw of the dice after two months in which Meegan had refused to answer any questions put to him by the Irish Mail on Sunday, despite mounting allegations from a variety of sources here, in Britain and in Kenya.
His strategy backfired, however: now Meegan’s court defeat has been reported around the world, as have details of the string of claims against him. His lawyer was publicly rebuked for misleading the High Court and Meegan will have to pay all the costs of his abortive attempt to silence our investigation. Questions are being asked in parliaments across Europe and his reputation appears to have been shattered.
Yet Meegan’s decision to seek to gag the MoS was not just made on a whim. It is the hallmark of a man who, for almost five years, has been fighting to stop the press reporting disturbing claims. Despite having been previously caught lying about his academic qualifications and his religious background – often calling himself ‘Brother Meegan’ – he and his team of lawyers were able to fend off the tide of concerns raised.
Indeed, when the MoS first invited Meegan to talk to us about these claims, we were met with a hostile response. His lawyers issued a series of legal threats against us and against other witnesses prepared to give evidence against him.
In Kenya, ICROSS went to the local police and demanded his accusers be arrested. In a country where human rights abuses are frequent and the police force has been implicated in mass killings and rapes, this act was a declaration of war on those perceived as trying to bring Meegan down.
For his part, his lawyer said Meegan was entitled to make a complaint of criminal libel and perjury against those he believed had falsely accused him. As the legal letters flew, Meegan insisted he was the victim of a vast international conspiracy: a conspiracy between aid workers with impeccable credentials, internationally respected academics, a member of the British House of Lords – and, of course, a number of Kenyan men.
His enemies also apparently included PricewaterhouseCoopers, which carried out a 2006 audit into the way he was spending charity funds, and even Irish Aid, the Irish taxpayers’ body which last year took back E100,000 it had given him.
The truth, in fact, is simply that the concerns about Michael Meegan had become too many and too serious to be ignored, and that, for once, he had met an opponent who was not willing to be cowed by threats.
The MoS investigation began almost two months ago in the last week of February when a source in Ireland expressed concern about the manner in which ICROSS was being run. It quickly emerged that there appeared to be a very real basis for these concerns and after just a couple of days, Barbara Jones – the Mail’s distinguished Foreign Correspondent – was dispatched to Kenya.
A mounting dossier of claims had been built up in the six weeks since inquiries into Michael Meegan had begun. It was clear there was a considerable public interest involved if a man in receipt of public and Government donations stood accused of any impropriety whatsoever, never mind the disturbing scale of the allegations being uncovered by the newspaper – all of which are denied by Meegan.
Then, in an extraordinary move on Friday, March 5, Meegan had his Irish solicitor threaten an injunction even before Meegan had been contacted by the MoS. At this stage, the newspaper provided him with a detailed list of the allegations made against him but agreed to withhold publication of the most serious accusations since he was travelling at the time and unavailable for comment.
Instead, on March 7, the MoS ran a front-page story about the fact that the Irish board of ICROSS had repaid almost E100,000 to the Government, frozen its account and taken steps to wind down amid independent and damning audit evidence of financial irregularities and a lack of accountability at the charity.
The following week, an increasingly familiar pattern began to emerge. Although at every stage the MoS provided Meegan with all of the information he requested, he declined to comment or respond on the record whatsoever other than to continue threatening injunctions.
In the meantime, through his lawyers, he set about discrediting many of the witnesses, accusing the African ones of being thieves, liars and cheats spurred on by a supposed 25-year conspiracy against him.
Supporting evidence – damning documentation from his own board, testimony from former board members and other witnesses, and letters in his own handwriting – were all ignored by Meegan.
It was a case of challenging any African witnesses he could and ignoring other evidence. When two former Irish board members gave testimony to the MoS, Meegan’s response was not to address the concerns they had raised – but to issue legal threats against them, too.
The MoS knew if it failed to prove its claims against Meegan in court, it could be liable for huge damages.
Eventually, however, the newspaper made it clear it was happy with the material it had gathered and that it planned to publish an article on April 3. As it had done from the start, it informed Meegan of what it planned to report so he could give a proper response.
This time, Meegan carried out his threat to try for an injunction. On the morning of April 1, his Dublin-based lawyer went before Judge John Edwards to ask for an emergency injunction against the MoS. As soon as the MoS was told of the application, it went to court, seeking an urgent hearing of the case but, in the event, the matter was put on hold until after Easter.
The Holy Thursday application was a tactic that had proven successful for Meegan against other newspapers in the past. However, senior executives at the MoS – including the editors and managing director – decided to support those who had cooperated with the newspaper’s investigation in Kenya and its duty to publish.
There was no guarantee of success – and a loss would have placed a draconian universal reporting ban on all of the allegations against Meegan forever. It would also have landed the paper with a huge bill for the legal costs involved in fending off Meegan’s gagging attempt.
A hearing was scheduled for the following Friday, April 9, before Judge Bryan McMahon. However, it was held over once more until the following Monday. After two further appearances before Judge Mary Laffoy, the case was set down for hearing on Friday, April 16. In the meantime, the MoS was hastily trying to get key witnesses to swear signed affidavits to present in the court case. Sworn statements were taken in Kenya, Dublin and London. The MoS also received fresh evidence to counter claims being made by Meegan and his associates about the alleged campaign against him.
Then, just after noon on Friday, April 16, Meegan’s barrister made what the judge would later say was a seriously misleading statement. The MoS had just learned the Kenyan police had been set on our witnesses: fearing for their safety, our barrister Liz Walsh asked High Court President Judge Nicholas Kearns to hear the case there and then.
Meegan’s barrister Morgan Shelley, however, objected. He told Judge Kearns the case would take two days to hear as it contained 60-page affidavits which would need to be considered in detail: and he warned the judge his decision could set a precedent for the future and so should not be rushed. On this basis, the judge agreed to postpone the hearing one more time – and set aside Monday and Tuesday to hear it in full.
When the two legal teams returned on Monday, however, the judge was livid. Having spent the weekend reading the case files, he realised that the case could have been heard the previous Friday. He said: ‘I am particularly angered by the fact that on Friday, when this matter was brought before the court at 12.45, I was assured by counsel for the applicant this was a matter that would take two days, with an affidavit running in length to some 60 pages,’ the judge said in his ruling.
‘This was a completely false representation, and this morning has been acknowledged as such. It did have the effect of putting off the hearing of the matter until today. The court deprecates in the strongest possible terms the making of the representation in question, which was manifestly untrue.’ It was a devastating rebuke; and worse was to come for Meegan’s team. Judge Kearns emphatically rejected his attempt to gag the MoS, deciding the evidence produced by the newspaper was more than sufficient to prove any future libel case had a reasonable prospect of being successfully defended.
Judge Kearns said the gagging order sought by Meegan would only be appropriate if the paper had insufficient evidence to back up its story. He also ruled that the question of Meegan’s sexuality – which Meegan had argued was a breach of his privacy – was an unavoidable by-product of the allegations against him and, as such, could be reported.
The judge awarded the full costs of the case against Meegan and also refused to place a ban on reporting of the case pending a possible Supreme Court appeal. Meegan’s lawyers have since confirmed he will not appeal… and his court defeat was complete.
Now Meegan faces questions in the Dáil and growing demands in Kenya for an inquiry. He may well regret his decision to go to war on the MoS.
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First published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 25/04/2010
I shared bed with Kenyan employee, says charity boss Display: Unformatted Line wrapped
It was not sexual, he insists after losing court case to MoS
By: Michael O’Farrell
CHARITY boss Michael Meegan has admitted sharing a bed with a junior male member of his Kenyan staff.
Meegan, who this week failed in a High Court attempt to gag an MoS investigation into a string of allegations against him, said he had spent three nights sleeping with the unnamed worker during a trip to Ireland.
Meegan told the Irish Times he was not having a sexual relationship with his African subordinate, insisting he had never had sex with any of his staff. He said that on this occasion he and his employee only shared a bed for reasons of space.
‘Most people – when you’re travelling and you’re staying in someone’s house and there’s only two bedrooms, one for the husband and wife and one for the guests – will crash. It doesn’t mean that you’re s****ing each other,’ he said.
However, evidence presented before the High Court last week stated that Meegan and the Kenyan employee in question were widely believed to be in a sexual relationship. Both parties denied this during the course of the High Court case – although evidence was also heard that the charity’s board had questioned Meegan in 2006 about sharing a bed with the same young man in Kenya.
The court hearing was told a number of Kenyan men had made allegations of sexual abuse or assault against Meegan. It was also alleged he had skimmed charity funds to pay for his lifestyle, flying sexual partners to Kenya from around the world. He was also alleged to have paid Kenyans to be allowed to cane them. He denied all the claims.
In this weekend’s interview, Meegan admitted wrongly using the title ‘Doctor’ and also conceded that Irish taxpayers’ cash given to ICROSS had apparently gone missing.
‘I called myself doctor in good faith,’ he said. ‘It had nothing to do with conning anyone; it was about furthering your academic qualifications… I had no idea the college was not accredited.’ He admitted his charity had failed to account for all Government funding properly. ‘We didn’t meet their criteria for expenditure. They didn’t know where money went but that didn’t mean it was stolen or swiped,’ he said. ‘You can’t be everywhere and police everything.
We never found any evidence of embezzlement.’ Since the early 1990s, ICROSS has relied on the Government and EU for funding although significant financial support was also provided by the US and Japanese Governments through donor programmes.
Public donations to the charity jumped sharply – to more than E1.4m in a two-year period – following a glowing RTÉ documentary and Meegan’s appearance on the BBC’s Hard Talk in 2005.
It is not clear how much money the Government provided to ICROSS but, since 1995, at least E500,000 was sent by the Department of Foreign Affairs through its donor section, Irish Aid.
The charity’s accounts in Ireland also show the EU provided grants totalling more than E290,000 in the 1990s.
In a parliamentary question to Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin this week, Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar asked the Government to provide details of how much grant aid had been given to ICROSS and whether efforts would be made to recoup it.
In addition, Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins has tabled an emergency question to the EU Commission asking whether it has ever ‘received complaints about the activities and methods of operation’ of the charity. He has also asked whether the Commission ‘will review the EU’s relationship with this charity in view of the current allegations’.
A month ago, the MoS revealed the Irish board of ICROSS had frozen the remaining E500,000 in its accounts and changed the account signatories following a damning Ernst & Young audit of ICROSS in Kenya.
The board also returned almost E100,000 to the Government at the request of Irish Aid, which had also uncovered financial practices it was not happy with.
