Judge to give his verdict on NAMA case 'in the coming weeks'

Judge Gordon Kerr KC said the verdicts against all three defendants will be delivered "before the end of term."

All the evidence in the case concluded last week and during today's hearing, final submissions were made by both the Crown and defence.

Former Sinn Fein MLA Daithi McKay, his former friend and party colleague Thomas O'Hara and loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson have spent the last four weeks in the dock at Belfast Crown Court.

All three face charges arising from an Assembly Finance and Personnel Committee meeting which took place in Stormont almost a decade ago.

At the time, Mr McKay was chairman of the Committee investigating how Northern Ireland property loans were handled by the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

On September 23, 2015, loyalist activist Jamie Bryson gave evidence at the Committee where he named the DUP's Peter Robinson as being one of five people set to benefit financially from the NAMA deal.

During the non-jury trial, the Crown made the case that a number of messages were exchanged on Twitter prior to the meeting between Mr Bryson and Mr McKay, and from Mr Bryson to the Twitter account of Mr O'Hara.

It's the Crown's case that due to these series of messages exchanged, there was manipulation of how Mr Bryson's evidence was presented at the Committee, and that the rules of this Committee were subverted to cause political embarrassment to Mr Robinson who, in September 2015, occupied the position of First Minister.

Thomas O'Hara (40) from Lisnahunshin Road in Cullybackey and 35-year old Jamie Bryson from Rosepark have both denied a charge of conspiring together and with Daithi McKay to commit an offence of misconduct in a public office on dates between September 1 and 24, 2015.

Mr McKay, who is 43 and from Loughan Road in Dunnamanagh, has been charged with misconduct in a public office on September 23, 2015.

All three men denied the charges levelled against them.

First to address the Judge during today's final submissions was Crown barrister Toby Hedworth KC who said the Twitter messages indicated there was "some form of a back channel of communication" prior to Mr Bryson giving evidence.

Mr O'Hara, when he gave his evidence last week, said he was asked by his friend Daithi McKay to cut and paste messages then send them to Mr Bryson's Twitter account.

He also made the case from the witness box that he didn't understand the contents of the messages and that he did not conspire with Mr Bryson.

Rejecting this, Mr Hedworth said that whilst he accepted Mr O'Hara "undoubtedly had intellectual limitations", he knew he was involved in "something serious that related to Mr McKay's role as Chairman of the Committee."

Mr Hedworth added that despite Mr O'Hara's limitation, he "could understand" that Mr McKay was allowing Mr Bryson to do something "he should not have been allowed to do."

Defence barristers for all three defendants then addressed Judge Kerr. John Larkin KC, representing Mr Bryson, reminded the Judge that his client and Mr O'Hara "had never met or spoken" before September 2015.

Denying Mr Bryson had broken the law in any way, Mr Larkin said: "There was no agreement that Mr McKay would do anything, far less anything that could be regarded as criminal."

Mr O'Hara's barrister Des Fahy KC told Judge Kerr it was his client's case that he had been "taken advantage of" by Mr McKay.

Mr Fahy also made the case that Mr O'Hara "knew nothing" about NAMA or the workings of the Assembly Committee "beyond the fact that his friend Mr McKay was the Chairman."

Mr McKay's barrister Martin O'Rourke KC told the Judge the case was akin to the courts being asked to "intervene in parliamentary process."

After listening to all the final submissions, Judge Kerr said he wanted to give his judgement and verdicts "as quickly as possible" and revealed he will do this "before the end of the term" - which is usually around the end of June/the start of July.