‘They are financial terrorists. I lost my home... even my family’
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 BBC 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 preparation 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 groundbreaking 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 10-year run and, after 30 years at the BBC he says he wanted to spend the next 10 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 £245m 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 m 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 £1.6m. 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
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
expanded into comedy, with artists on the books such as Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, who have gone on to huge fame and into the lucrative voice-over market.
He believes it would have been one of the most successful agencies in the industry and adds that it only needed one format to come good for his TV production outfit to become immensely valuable.
‘Bankers are financial terrorists,’ he declares. ‘Money is their god and greed is their faith. They see no other logic than the pursuit of their religion.’
The public should, he says, have been able to trust men such as Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of RBS at the time of the financial crisis, and James Crosby, who ran HBOS during that period.
‘Goodwin and Crosby ought to be investigated. Neither of them have been properly investigated.’ TODAY Noel has once again found happiness with his third wife Liz Davies, 48, who he first met when she arrived as a stand-in make-up artist on his show Deal Or No Deal. Liz, he laughs, has given him some face-powder so he doesn’t look too shiny in the photographs.
But it is a rare moment of light relief and, for the most part, the mood is sombre, when we meet.
He can barely bring himself to talk to me about the destruction of his earlier family life but, in his submission to a review by Professor Russel Griggs of entrepreneurs who claim their firms were driven to the wall by HBOS, Noel gives a soul-baring account, saying it ‘shattered my most precious gifts, my marriage and my family’.
‘The stress that I was suffering was also – despite my best efforts – seeping into my family like poison and making all our lives joyless,’ his testimony continues. ‘My daughters should have been enjoying happiness, stability and security.’
While he and Pascoe, the chief executive, were concentrating on the business, ‘my wife increasingly became both a distressed and unwilling passenger. Our whole world, which we had spent years building, was in the process of disintegrating at the hands of a bank, which should have been our ally’.
In a desperate attempt to relieve the pressure on himself and his family, he began selling off his most treasured possessions including his collection of classic cars, which he was buying as a pension.
These, he says, had to be sold for less than they were worth. They subsequently achieved ‘significant’ values at auction, he says. He estimates his losses at a minimum of £7m plus interest.
Noel also had to dispose of his music collection, broadcasting memorabilia, paintings, antique furnishings and personal items adding up to £1m at today’s prices, by his reckoning.
‘Probably the most ironic thing was selling my name,’ he says, talking of the sale of his image rights for £1.3m.
‘Well, it’s not your own name because I don’t own my name. I think we have it back now but for a while I didn’t own it.’
In late 2004, he instructed his land agent to find a buyer for the Broomford Estate. And as he put it: ‘The loss of family life in our Devon haven was indescribably painful for all of us.’
Unable to withstand the ‘maelstrom of stress’ the marriage fell apart. He and Helen divorced in July 2005 after 19 years, a parting that he describes as a ‘tragedy’ that it ‘is impossible to exaggerate’. AS THE strain mounted, Noel was drinking more than usual and admits he was using wine as a crutch. ‘I am not a big drinker but I was undoubtedly drinking far, far too much, though never to a point of being incapable of doing anything,’ he says. Was he a functioning alcoholic? ‘I don’t think so. But what is an alcoholic? A person who needs alcohol to get through the day – yeah I did. I would look forward to having a bottle of wine in the evening.’
His depression mounted over ‘a pretty grim’ Christmas. And then, in January, came that dark walk to the woods and the moment when he was determined to end it all. He has no recollection of what happened after he swallowed the pills and the vodka, though he knows now he was found by a security guard and rushed to hospital.
His first memory after the failed attempt was of being driven from hospital to the Priory Hospital in Bristol, by his friend Brian Cameron.
There, he was placed on suicide watch, which he describes as ‘a truly humiliating experience’ and stayed for weeks until he felt strong enough to face the world again.
He took out an injunction preventing any media reporting but this year decided to speak out, partly because he believes too many people, particularly men, are tempted to take their own lives.
He has made generous donations to the Samaritans and, drawing on the optimism and perseverance instilled in him by his parents, Noel has somehow clawed his way back to a positive mental state.
‘They were part of a very strong energy that got me through,’ he says.
‘Having hit the very bottom, I have huge strength on the way up. The dark force that is Lloyds cannot beat me and people like me.’
A Lloyds Banking Group spokesman said: ‘We cannot comment on individuals but our first priority remains getting compensation to customers affected by the fraud.
‘We have already made offers to over half the customers participating in the review.
‘While we continue to believe that the review is the best way to get swift and fair compensation to customers where detriment has occurred, for those who choose not to participate, we will seek to resolve these matters outside the review as appropriate.’
For these bankers, money is god, and greed is their faith