TV NOEL: EVIL BANK DROVE ME TO DRUGS OVERDOSE

Raw with pain and fury, Noel Edmonds lays bare the full shattering truth behind his case against bank that betrayed him

I recorded messages to each of my four daughters. It was goodbye

ON THE evening of January 18, 2005, Noel Edmonds closed the door of his Devon manor house and walked towards the nearby woods, intent on ending his own life. Broken and lonely, he was barely recognisable as the irrepressible, pullover-clad TV host who had for decades appeared on our screens in Top Of The Pops, House Party and Multi-Coloured Swap Shop.

In his pocket was a stock of prescription pills he had been hoarding for a year, and in his hand a bottle of vodka, grabbed from his drinks cabinet to wash the tablets down.

This was a Noel Edmonds in the depths of despair, a man whose seemingly gilded life had come crashing down around his ears. And his persecutor? Shockingly, he says, it was a high street bank – Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) – and one crooked banker in particular.

To Noel, a man who once had everything, it seemed as if there was simply nothing left to live for.

He says: ‘HBOS had robbed me of my marriage, my family, my businesses, my longstanding friend and business partner; my income, my investments, my self-respect, my reputation, my privacy, my physical and mental health. It cost me my security, my image rights, my collection of classic cars – and very nearly my life.’

Today, in a hugely emotional interview, Noel, 68, opens up for the first time about an episode that came close to destroying him – and about the behaviour of a banking system he now condemns as evil. After years of struggle, he finally feels strong enough to seek redress for the financial and emotional damage he has suffered.

He is claiming £300 million from Lloyds, which bought HBOS at the height of the financial crisis. That’s how much he believes he has lost from the potential earnings he believes he would have had from his onceflourishing business interests.

Noel accuses the bank of saddling his companies with ‘crippling fees and interest charges’ and of making unreasonable demands for personal guarantees that put his home and treasured possessions at risk.

It is a legal battle that is being watched closely by scores of other, non-famous business owners, who also believe t heir firms were pillaged by rogue bankers who effectively looted a series of sound businesses and blew the proceeds on exotic holidays, sex parties and prostitutes.

Looking back on the day that was so nearly his last, he explains that he chose the woods because they were powerfully associated with the memory of his late mother.

‘After she died, I took her things to a particular area that had power for me, where I had always felt comfortable, and one day I set fire to them,’ he recalls.

‘There was a mound in the wood and I r emember dousing my mother’s clothes and paperwork and setting fire to them. It went “whoof”. I looked up and thought, “Mum, I hope you don’t mind, I hope you understand.” There was a bang, and an aerosol can flew out of the fire and missed me by an inch. I thought: “Oh damn, Mum, you didn’t want me to burn that stuff.”

‘ Two years later, that was the place I went to try to kill myself.’

Was he, in his desperation, trying to reunite with his mother? ‘No. I don’t know,’ he stumbles. ‘ I’ve thought a lot about that dark place I got to. Thankfully, it is beyond the comprehension of most people.

‘Yes, people suffer from depression. But it is not quite the same as the space you go into when all reason goes, when rationality and logic and hope vanish. Life without hope is no life. There is no logic. How illogical, when you adore your children and family, to do that.’

The destruction Noel suffered at the hands of what he calls the ‘ HBOS criminals’ was both personal and financial.

Not only had the dispute laid waste to his business empire, but it precipitated the end of his marriage, too.

Before taking what he thought would be his last steps into the forest, Edmonds had written a letter to his then wife, Helen, and recorded messages on Dictaphone tapes to each of his daughters, Charlotte, Lorna, Olivia and

They wrecked my life and now they perpetuate my agony They targeted me in the most cold, calculating and evil fashion imaginable We were servicing all debts and overdrafts at all times

t he youngest, Alice, who was just seven.

Does he remember what he said on the tapes? ‘Yes, but how much do you want me to cry?’ he says quietly. ‘It was goodbye.’

TO UNDERSTAND what pushed the previously effervescent Edmonds to the depths of attempted suicide and the battle for justice he feels he is waging today, you need to delve beneath his television persona of Mr Blobby notoriety.

From the late 1970s, he had been building a business portfolio in parallel with his TV career, a decision he says was based on a fascination with the corporate world sparked when he was asked to host conferences for big firms such as the delivery group DHL.

Even as a young radio DJ – he filled in on Radio 1 for Kenny Everett from the late 1960s – he says he had a business-like approach.

‘Some disc jockeys would turn up 15 minutes before the show, while I probably put in four hours of prep- aration work for every show I did,’ he says. ‘I took it very seriously.’

By the early 1990s, Noel believed his attempt to merge his broadcast fame into the business world was starting to pay off.

He was one of the first celebrities to establish himself as a brand – a common idea now, but ground- breaking back then. He set up his first company, providing sponsored helicopters – Noel is a qualified helicopter pilot – in 1985.

By the end of that decade he had conceived the idea of the Unique group of businesses, ranging from independent radio production to talent management.

His hit show Noel’s House Party had reached the end of its hugely successful ten-year run and after 30 years at the BBC he says he wanted to spend the next ten years of his life concentrating on his Unique businesses, seeking ‘a more meaningful life.’ Noel had just turned 50, and his plan was to make a smooth transition out of television and slot into a second career as a businessman at the helm of his Unique group. His lawyer and friend Paul Pascoe was installed as the chief executive and the financial brains while, thanks to his TV fame, Noel could open doors and pique the interest of potential customers and partners.

Yet those hopes of a golden late middle age, he says, were ‘totally destroyed’ by ‘unscrupulous employees of HBOS’, in particular Mark Dobson, 56, a former manager later sentenced to four-and-ahalf years for his involvement in the ‘HBOS Reading’ scandal.

Edmonds also names David Mills, 60, a consultant at a firm called Quayside Corporate Services which claimed to specialise in turning around troubled companies.

Mills was jailed for 15 years for bribing bankers at HBOS Reading with sex parties and expensive watches to push firms to use Quayside’s services. But instead of helping them recover, Mills and his cohorts were squeezing them for huge fees and stripping them of their assets. HBOS has written off £245 million worth of loans relating to the affair.

Noel says that Dobson and Mills ‘targeted me and, operating in the most cold, calculating and evil fashion imaginable, totally destroyed the group of companies in which I had invested so much of my time, reputation and money.’ He adds: ‘I use the word “evil” because there is no other way to describe the people who wrecked my life and now perpetuate my agony.’

Edmonds was never a client of the Reading branch. But he says in 2004 his previously good relationship with the bank began to deteriorate when Dobson, a specialist in ‘distressed assets’ or businesses in difficulty, was put in charge of running Unique’s borrowing.

Noel believes that subsequent events, in the form of the convictions of the HBOS Reading bankers and outside consultants, prove Dobson was orchestrating the destruction of his business for their profit.

‘What they did to me – they upped the fees, they upped the interest charges. They knew the assets were there.

‘In my case it was property assets. They knew exactly what I was worth. They targeted businesses owned by people who had worth, and that were functioning well enough that they could withstand additional fees.’

Did he break any banking agreements, default on any payments, or fall into arrears? ‘ No. We were servicing all debts and overdrafts at all times. We had a £1.5 million facility and we probably went quite close to it, but what’s the point of a pint of milk if you don’t use all the milk?’

Desperate to wrestle free of the bank’s control, he decided reluctantly to sell shares in Unique Broadcasting Company that the lender held as security. The proceeds of these shares, for which he had received several lucrative offers, would have wiped out his debt entirely. But he claims the bank forbade the sale – he believes in order to keep him in its clutches and take even more in fees and charges.

The shares subsequently fell in value. In the end HBOS invoked a personal guarantee from Noel and he felt forced to hand over £1.6 million. He says he believed at the time the move was unjust, but agreed because of the intense pressure he was under. The bank’s seemingly inexplicable actions, he explains, had drained him of all confidence: ‘I wondered whether I was just a crap businessman.’

Even worse, the bank’s action was set to cost him Broomford, the beautiful estate he regarded as a haven for himself and his family.

Noel is convinced his companies could, given time and the right backing, have grown into a serious empire. His talent agency had