Kieran Neeson, the son of Aussie rock icon Doc Neeson, has fulfilled a deathbed promise to his late dad following a victory in court.
A notorious music promoter has been ordered to repay the former Angels frontman’s estate more than $100,000, after Kieran took up the reigns of a legal battle that Doc started prior to his death from brain cancer in 2014.
Promoter Mark Filby was accused of swindling Doc’s life savings. Filby owed the singer upwards of $100K in loans, and had even acknowledged the fact in a signed statutory declaration from 2009.
And, after promising his ailing father that he would continue the fight to see the money returned to its rightful owners, Kieran Neeson has finally had a win, with Downing Centre Magistrates Court yesterday ordering Filby to repay his debts to the Neeson family.
“I got a bit teary — I’m just so relieved, and overwhelmed,” Kieran told The Daily Telegraph. “I’ve had sleepless nights thinking about what was going to happen.”
“It’s also a bit of closure for us — this has been going on every day and it hasn’t let me or my family deal with the grief of my dad’s passing,” he said.
“I’m the one who picked this fight but that was based on a promise that I made to dad — a promise that has now been fulfilled.”
An exposé that aired on Nine’s A Current Affair last October described Filby as “the con man who brought down an Angel”, and the court judge seems to have agreed with that assessment.
According to The Music, the judge presiding over the trial described Filby as “evasive” “unreliable” and “unbelievable” and said he would “do whatever it takes to further his own interests including lying”.
As the Tele reports, Filby, who did not turn up to the courthouse, now has 56 days to pay back $70,500, plus six year’s interest, as well as the court costs of barrister John Bryson, who took on the high-profile case pro-bono.
Keiran also told the paper that he would be donating a “large whack” of the funds to a brain cancer charity, to honour The Angels frontman’s memory.
“I don’t care about the money too much, it wasn’t about that, it never was,” he said. “It was about a promise to our dad.
“I hope ending this will give us some kind of closure and will allow us to move on a bit and get back to concentrating on all the good memories we had with Dad.”
Watch: Doc Neeson – Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again? Live On RockWiz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z87GJiNA7dE
