CHOOSING to thrust himself front and centre of a public meeting in the earliest throes of its probe into the biggest ever property scandal in the north won't have sat easily with Gareth Graham.
The quietly spoken and unassuming millionaire businessman, whose family owns the Sean Graham bookmakers empire and who himself heads a modestly-sized property portfolio, vehemently believes he's been wronged by Cerberus.
Yesterday he chose to give evidence to Stormont's Finance and Personnel Committee as it attempts (belatedly perhaps) to get to grips with details around the sale of National Asset Management Agency (Nama) assets in Northern Ireland.
And over the course of 70-odd minutes, his quite extraordinary evidence - delivered calmly but in a heartfelt manner - has opened up a can of worms which could potentially go right to the heart of government in Northern Ireland, yet which has also perhaps left more questions than answers.
Mr Graham, who saw his property companies' loans with Bank of Ireland transferred to Nama following the 2007 crash, is currently in the process of challenging Cerberus in the courts by contesting its right to appoint receivers and administrators to his businesses.
His evidence yesterday could therefore not focus on his legal action against the US vulture fund (though he did describe them as "ruthless, unjust and unreasonable"), but rather on the role of the Nama Northern Ireland advisory committee and, in particular, one of its advisers, Frank Cushnahan.
And in the course of his submission he confirmed that he has "thousands" of taped conversations running to hundreds of hours featuring Mr Cushnahan, who for a time was a director and shareholder of Graham Bookmakers, where all calls in and out of the headquarters building are recorded as a matter of course.
It emerged that Mr Cushnahan still retains a 5 per cent interest in the Graham property companies including Lehill, which Gareth Graham claimed "breached his fiduciary duty" since accepting an appointment to Nama's NI advisory board.
Mr Cushnahan has denied wrongdoing and said he gave up the property interests.
Mr Graham also told the committee he believed Mr Cushnahan - who he described as "very influential" - was "intent on destroying my business".
And the tapes, he said, will also expose "unlawful banking arrangements".
In the course of his evidence, and during cross-examination, Mr Graham labelled Cerberus as "vultures" and insisted the Department of Finance and Personnel, then under the ministership of Sammy Wilson, "didn't do a very good job on due diligence over Nama sale".
Mr Graham insists his business has been "directly impacted" by Cerberus, and he is challenging them through the courts in an effort to keep his property companies alive.
"I've been a good borrower. My business is financially robust and I've never missed a repayment. Yet at one stage Cerberus gave me just 24 hours to raise £33 million," he said.
"If I'd been given a week, I'd have had a stab at raising the money."
It was calmness personified... like his evidence throughout.
Now it's over to the committee to see where they'll turn next to get to the bottom of what one member described as "an absolute scandal".
