The second anniversary of the death of business tycoon and philanthropist Albert Gubay passed on Friday.

But his legacy remains marred by controversy surrounding the Mount Murray development - over which new evidence has only recently come to light.

In October 1991, the editorial department of the Manx Independent received an anonymous letter which contained some startling claims.

The letter, a copy of one sent to Barry Vannan, the then deputy head of the planning office, stated: ’Albert Gubay is making a fool out of your department and the Manx government over Mount Murray.

’The so-called developer is an employee of Albert Gubay in a subsidiary company.

’All letters to do with yourselves are typed in Anglo Int. House, Gubay’s offices, and sent for signature and then posted to yourselves.

’Gubay does not intend to actually develop the site as a leisure village; after initially erecting some of the holiday houses, the scheme will run into "difficulties" and by one means or another it will be turned into a straight-forward housing development.

’The whole thing is being set up so that the gun can be put to your department’s head eventually!

’Act now before it is too late.’

More than half of the land at Mount Murray had been designated as an area of high landscape value and scenic significance, the rest being zoned for tourism accommodation.

Planning approval in principle was granted in February 1991 for a ’resort village’, including holiday villas and patio homes.

In the summer of that year, the applicant submitted a full application for 150 housing sites, later extended to 175.

With the hotel, golf course and tourism facilities completed, construction of the housing began in 1994.

But far from being tourist accommodation, they were all sold as permanent homes.

A Commission of Inquiry into Mount Murray subsequently found that the anonymous letter writer was correct - that companies with which Mr Gubay was involved, as director or shareholder, were involved in the development in the full sense.

And it concluded that the developer’s objective from the start was to acquire consent for permanent residential use.

This was achieved not through open procedures, which would have risked refusal, but incrementally or covertly albeit lawfully.

Initial permission for a resort village, treated by the planning office as a wholly tourism-based scheme, became progressively altered to the point where permission was given for any or all of the proposed houses to be used as permanent residences.

Members of the planning committee, virtually without exception, claimed not to have been aware of the nature of the uses which they were permitting.

They assumed the original condition limiting occupation to ’bona fide tourists’ remained in place but had agreed a change to a planning condition that effectively confirmed that permanent residential occupancy would be acceptable.

The inquiry was highly critical of the then tourism minister Allan Bell who it said had acted in ’undesirably close alliance with the developer’ and had ensured the scheme received planning approval by applying ’unacceptable’ pressure to planning officers.

He had acted out of a ’misjudged sense of political and public interest’, it suggested.

Fast forward to December last year and a judgment in a long-running legal battle between the late Mr Gubay and his former right-hand man Peter Willers finally revealed the identity of that anonymous letter writer from 26 years earlier.

Christopher Stewart Barr, an in-house legal adviser in the Anglo Group, admitted in evidence that he was the author.

He said that he had taken material which accompanied the letter from Mr Willers’ office.

Mr Gubay had been furious when he found out about the letter and said he would search Mr Barr’s home. He found the incriminating material.

Mr Gubay assaulted Mr Barr and they had come to blows.

Mr Barr had ’a wounded face’, the judgment states.

In a public statement published in the press in 1993, Mr Gubay flatly denied assaulting any of his employees.

When the letter was passed to the Manx Independent in 1991, the paper was not owned by Isle of Man Newspapers.

To have run a story based on the letter then would have been difficult - and potentially expensive.

Allegations printed anonymously with no supporting evidence could have led to court procedures if Mr Gubay had sued for defamation.