Redknapp shouts his denial of tax evasion
The football boss shouted from the witness box at prosecutor John Black: “You think I put my hand on the bible and told lies? That’s an insult, Mr Black, that’s an insult.”
Redknapp shook his head as Black ended his cross-examination at Southwark Crown Court in London, by saying: “I suggest you have been telling the court a pack of lies.”
Redknapp replied: “Everything I have told you is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”
Both Redknapp, 64, and co-defendant Milan Mandaric, 73, deny two counts of cheating the public revenue through bungs worth £189,000 in a Monaco bank account.
Redknapp said he was willing to swear again on the bible as he completed his evidence, saying: “I am not a liar.”
He said: “I’m the most ungreedy person you have ever met in your whole life, ever.”
He also asked Black “are we that stupid?” after it was suggested Redknapp had “let the cat out of the bag”.
“Do you think me and Mr Mandaric are going to have completely different stories,” Redknapp said.
“Sometimes I may say the wrong words but I do not do it purposely.”
He said the payments were “one million per cent not my bonus” and the account “was so far from my mind it was unbelievable”.
He said he did not tell his accountant about it because, “I had nothing to tell him, there was nothing in it.”
Redknapp said he had paid £8m in taxes “so why are we going to bother?”
“I only asked Mr Mandaric once about the account — the away win at Blackburn (in 2004),” Redknapp said. “He said ‘Disaster, Harry’ — I didn’t ask again.”
Redknapp said the account was no secret. “I told all the boys at Portsmouth about it, I told Quest about it, that’s how secret it was.
“As far as I was concerned, it was the most unimportant thing in my life, that account.”
Redknapp told the court he “plucked the wrong figure” out of the air as he was questioned by Premier League bung investigators.
Redknapp denied claims he “desperately” tried to cover up allegations the Monaco payments were bonuses for transfer profits.
Redknapp earlier admitted misleading a News of the World reporter because it was the “easy way out”.
He said he gave sports journalist Rob Beasley the wrong information to prevent a story appearing in Sunday tabloid as Tottenham were due to take on Manchester United in the 2009 League Cup final.
Redknapp said: “I don’t have to tell Mr Beasley the truth. I have to tell police the truth, not Mr Beasley, he’s a News of the World reporter.”
Asked why he referred to payments as bonuses he was due for the sale of Peter Crouch from Portsmouth to Aston Villa, Redknapp said: “I wanted to make the point to Mr Beasley that it was paid by my chairman.
“I referred to it to him many times as my Crouch bonus”, as “Crouch is an easy answer”.
Redknapp said: “I just want to get Mr Beasley out the way — I just didn’t want a story in the paper... I was going to come down to breakfast and all my players were going to be looking at the back page of the News of the World. It was going to be embarrassing.”
When asked again why he had offered a “false story” to Beasley, Redknapp said: “I just want to get him off my back. This is the easy way out for me before a cup final.”
The prosecution closing speech takes place today.
