Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin faces court quiz in £800m action

THOUSANDS of former Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders will this week bring an £800 million legal claim against the bank over its 2008 rights issue.

The action will result in RBS’s former chief executive Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin being questioned in court over the bank’s failure.

Shareholders who lost thousands of pounds as a result of the rights issue claim they were misled about the bank’s solvency.

John Bradney, a 75-year-old retired chartered accountant from Rye, East Sussex, lost £10,000. He told The Mail on Sunday this weekend: ‘I would like the money back, but almost more important to me is seeing the former executives explain what they did and why they did it.’

Goodwin, who was ousted from the bank during the crisis and has not spoken publicly about those events since 2009, will be crossexamined about his role on June 8.

Bradney plans to attend the hearing to hear Goodwin’s testimony. He says he relied on assurances given by the former chief executive when he invested.

Former shareholders say RBS’s ‘inherent weaknesses were not adequately disclosed or fairly represented to investors by the prospectus’.

RBS, alongside co-defendants Goodwin and three other former executives, says the prospectus ‘contained all the information necessary’.