No healing if RBS rogues avoid court

THE reviled symbols of rogue capitalism, the bankers at the top of the Royal Bank of Scotland, were finally due in court this week.

Fred Goodwin, formerly Sir Fred, and a raft of former executives, were due to be questioned as part of a £700million lawsuit.

They were to be asked the question that has been on everyone’s lips since the bank crash of 2008: “What did you all think you were playing at?”

When news of RBS’s £49billion takeover of the Dutch ABN Amro bank broke a year before the great crash, you didn’t need to be an actuary to raise an eyebrow.

A sense of impending disaster from overblown mortgages in the US was already in the air.

Everyone felt the bubble was due to burst. Everybody except some shareholders, who took advice from the gods of banking at RBS and foolishly pumped another £12billion into the bank.

Aggrieved shareholders are now in court trying to get money back from the bank that we, the public, had to bail out to the tune of £45.5billion nine years ago.

Out of court settlements may mean that the case will not see the light of day.

That means the public will be ripped off again in not having seen some kind of justice served on those responsible for the age of austerity we’re living through.

In Iceland, the other epicentre of the banking crash, dozens of so-called “banksters” were convicted – about 20 sent to prison – for manipulating the market.

Here, no one at top level has so much as been chastised for the debacle, which is what leaves so much public anger with the political and financial system.

That system won’t heal until people see those responsible for the crash face their responsibilities.