BIG Jim Byrnes, fresh from being accused of blowing up one house, is struggling to hang onto another.
Earlier this month the former deputy state coroner Jacqueline Milledge said that there was "ample and significant circumstantial evidence" linking the controversial businessman to the arson of his house in Tara Street, Woollahra, in 1997.
The coroner was inquiring into the 2001 murder of Mr Byrnes's colleague Max Gibson, who was given a heroin "hot shot" on the opening day of his trial for the arson of the Woollahra house, which Mr Byrnes was buying.
In her report, the coroner said that when police attempted to obtain a statement from Mr Byrnes as the prospective purchaser of the property, he threatened, through his solicitor, to initiate a restraining order against the detective and to report him to the Police Integrity Commission. "Bizarre behaviour for a man who is apparently a victim of crime," the coroner said.
Mr Byrnes's current residence in Bellevue Hill, which was bought by his wife, Gina, for $4.5 million in September 2004, has been the subject of a Supreme Court stoush over the last few months with the mortgagee attempting to repossess the house.
Yesterday Mr and Mrs Byrnes sat outside the courtroom as a confidential agreement was reached over the Cranbrook Road property. Mrs Byrnes's home has two mortgages as well as a caveat lodged against it. In December 2006 she took out a $3.5 million mortgage with Australian Executor Trustees. Last year she borrowed $900,000 at 17.5 per cent per annum from Nibar Investments Pty Ltd.
The two mortgage holders have taken separate actions against Mrs Byrnes. In April Australian Executor Trustees gained a writ to repossess the house. Mrs Byrnes appealed on the promise she would repay an undisclosed sum in May. The Nibar Investments case is back in court on July 10.
Yesterday the dispute over the first mortgage was settled, with the terms not to be disclosed. Mr Byrnes said the matter was a simple commercial dispute about a loan which had been resolved.
"I promise you it will be an enormous mistake if you report this," Mr Byrnes told the Herald .
He threatened to sue for defamation if his wife was mentioned in any article. Mr Byrnes, who has been disqualified twice by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, previously bankrupted, and jailed in 1986 for the deemed supply of heroin, is in a personal insolvency arrangement after failing to pay costs in a series of unsuccessful defamation actions against Fairfax Media group newspapers.