A long-running high court case has shed new light on the conduct of the late tycoon Albert Gubay and his involvement in the Mount Murray development.

In a judgment dismissing all but one of six claims made against the millionaire by his former right-hand man Peter Willers, Deemster Andrew Corlett said there was much in the conduct of Mr Gubay he found ’objectionable’.

Listing a series of findings of fact relating to the late businessman’s conduct, he includes the following: ’He also appears to have misled the Mount Murray inquiry as to his role in that project.’

Evidence during the court case was heard from Christopher Stewart Barr, an in-house legal adviser in the Anglo Group.

Mr Barr admitted he was the author of an anonymous letter sent in October 1991 to the then director of planning and Isle of Man Newspapers.

It said that Mr Gubay ’is making a fool out of your department and the Manx Government over Mount Murray’.

The letter suggested Mr Gubay was behind the development and did not intend it as a leisure village but rather it would be ’turned into straightforward housing development’. Mr Barr said he had taken material which accompanied the letter from Mr Willers’ office.

Mr Gubay had been furious when he found out. He had assaulted him and they had come to blows, the Deemster heard.

Mr Barr was therefore able to say he knew Mr Gubay had committed perjury when he had appeared as a prosecution witness in a High Bailiff’s court hearing and denied assaulting any of his employees.

The Deemster in his judgment concluded that Mr Gubay had behaved in a ’disgraceful way’ when dealing with Mr Willers, who he had dismissed as in-house legal counsel in 2009.

He said Mr Gubay, who died in January 2016, engineered his dismissal and applied ’every possible improper means’ to put pressure on him.

Mr Gubay became a director of Celtic Bank for the sole purpose of accessing Mr Willers’ bank account, he unlawfully instructed hacking into his home telephone records, caused a caveat to be filed against his home and tried to freeze his pension fund.

’I have no doubt Mr Gubay developed paranoid obsessions,’ said the Deemster.

Mr Willers had lodged claims totalling £3.5 million for payments he said he was entitled to from, among other things, the sale of Mount Murray and the Total Fitness chain, and loss of earnings.

But, as last week’s Manx Independent reported, Deemster Corlett dismissed all but one, ruling variously they lacked credibility, were unsupported by evidence or were based on ’inherently vague and inconsistent expressions of intention’.

A 2002 commission of inquiry was held into planning irregularities concerning the Mount Murray development and how a tourism proposal became a residential scheme.

Mr Gubay always insisted he was just the builder, not the developer.