Former Co-op bank boss Paul Flowers charged with fraud
A FORMER Co-operative Bank chairman has been charged with fraud.
Paul Flowers, 73 – who was the bank’s non-executive chairman between 2009 and 2013 – is due to appear at Manchester magistrates’ court on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that Flowers faced one count of fraud by abuse of position, which was allegedly committed between June 2016 and October 2017.
But last night, Flowers, who is also a former Methodist minister and Labour councillor, denied this.
He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I saw the police just over four years ago. Since then I have not been cautioned, arrested or charged for anything.
‘As far as a court appearance is concerned, neither the police nor the CPS has been in contact about anything.’
When asked to explain the contradiction, he did not respond.
Flowers resigned from the bank – which trades under the slogan ‘ethical then, ethical now, ethical always’ – in June 2013.
The Co-operative Bank declined to comment on the matter last night but a spokesman said that neither the bank nor any current employee is party to the proceedings.
Flowers served more than 15 years as a Labour Party councillor on Rochdale and Bradford councils. During this period, in 2010, he was appointed to the party’s finance advisory board by then Labour leader Ed Miliband.
In 2009, the Co-operative Bank merged with Britannia Building Society and it was later revealed that the merger had led to a £1.5billion capital shortfall requiring an emergency rescue for the bank in 2013.
Its owner, the Co-op Group, was wiped out and the bank is now owned by private equity groups. A report concluded there had been broken corporate governance and executive management failings at the bank.
The allegation against Flowers means he joins a small group of senior bankers to face criminal charges, alongside the former Barclays boss John Varley, who was cleared of alleged fraud relating to the bank’s cash-call in the 2008 financial crisis.