25th Jan 12
Harry Redknapp ‘kept offshore account secret’
by Harry Oldfield
Red faced: Harry failed to disclose Monaco accounts for five years
Red faced: Harry failed to disclose Monaco accounts for five years
Harry Redknapp did not inform his bank or his accountant about an offshore account for years, heard jurors.
He is accused of accepting secret payments from Milan Mandaric, the former chairman of Portsmouth, while he was manager of the south coast team. The Tottenham Hotspur boss only admitted to having the Monaco-based account when asked to do so by a Premier League inquiry, heard Southwark Crown Court.
Mr Mandaric, 73, and 64-year-old Mr Redknapp deny charges relating to cheating the public revenue. Jurors previously heard that Mr Redknapp was given a percentage of the net profit received from transfers while he was at Portsmouth. In addition, the prosecution read out transcripts of discussions that Mr Redknapp and Mr Mandaric had with a reporter from the News of the World in which they denied allegations of Redknapp receiving ‘bungs’.
On the trial’s second day, the jury heard that Mr Redknapp kept his Monaco-based account secret from his bank relations manager and his accountant for five years and eight months and four-and-a-half years respectively. The court heard that Mr Redknapp had informed the Premier League’s Quest inquiry into the transfers of players he had an accountant that invested the funds for him in his Monaco account.
The prosecution said that Quest later got a letter from Mr Mandaric saying that said he had opened the account for Mr Redknapp and invested funds there for him. The prosecution’s John Black QC said that Mr Redknapp was trying to feign almost complete ignorance regarding the Monaco account’s existence during the Quest inquiry in 2006.
It was first mentioned when the Quest inquiry asked Mr Mandaric to provide payment details of funds Mr Redknapp received, said Mr Black. He asked the court if Mr Redknapp was likely to be unaware of the account in question, even though he had travelled to Monaco two years beforehand to open it in his dog’s name, Rosie.
He said that Revenue and Customs were not told of the account’s existence for six years and two months, after the first arrest of Mr Redknapp in this investigation. The court was read excerpts of letters about the account’s origins. The prosecution said that one was sent from Mr Redknapp’s accountant to his bank relations manager asking if it was possible that the Monaco account could have been opened without Mr Redknapp knowing.
In addition, the jury was read transcripts from two taped News of the World interviews in which Mr Mandaric claimed the Monaco account was “not money from football” and “nothing to do with bonuses”.
The court heard that Mr Redknapp informed a reporter that funds – a bonus from the sale of Peter Crouch – had been put into an offshore account. This was allegedly due to Mr Mandaric not having a bank account in the UK, so he had to transfer from a US bank account into the Monaco account.
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