Redknapp jury told to keep their eye on the ball (From Daily Echo)

Redknapp jury told to keep their eye on the ball

1:59pm Friday 3rd February 2012 in News By Echo Reporter

JURORS hearing Harry Redknapp's tax evasion trial were warned today to ''keep their eyes on the ball'' when they consider their verdicts.

The prosecution alleged that the former Saints manager was ''driven with his back to the wall to lie'' when he claimed he gave a sports journalist false information about why over £90,000 was paid into his Monaco bank account.

Redknapp, 64, told London's Southwark Crown Court this week that the money was given to him in 2002 by Milan Mandaric, 73, his former boss at Portsmouth Football Club, as an investment that had nothing to do with his employment.

But prosecutor John Black QC urged the jury in a closing speech to conclude that the sum was in fact a bonus paid to Redknapp from Portsmouth's profits on the sale of striker Peter Crouch to Aston Villa.

Mr Black told the jury: ''You may have little difficulty in concluding that if it was a bonus, no tax was deducted, no tax was paid - and indeed no tax has ever been paid in relation to that bonus as we stand here in 2012.''

The trial heard that Redknapp told former News of the World sports reporter Rob Beasley in a taped conversation in 2009 that Mandaric paid the money into his Monaco account as a bonus relating to the sale of Crouch for a £3 million profit.

But in evidence, the manager said he told the journalist the wrong information to prevent a story appearing in the Sunday tabloid as Spurs took on Manchester United in the 2009 League Cup final.

Mr Black rejected this claim, telling jurors: ''Apparently it's all right for Mr Redknapp to lie - 'the difference, I suppose, is I'm on oath here, I wasn't then'.

''In a way he has no choice if he has to run the investment defence. How is he to explain his interview with Mr Beasley? He's driven with his back to the wall to lie.''

The prosecutor told the four women and eight men of the jury it was important to ''keep one's eye on the ball'' and not be influenced by anything in the media about the case.

Redknapp, of Sandbanks, Dorset, and Mandaric, of Oadby, Leicestershire, deny two counts of cheating the public revenue when Redknapp was manager of Portsmouth Football Club.

The first charge of cheating the public revenue alleges that between April 1 2002 and November 28 2007 Mandaric paid 145,000 US dollars (£93,100) into Redknapp's Monaco account.

The second charge for the same offence relates to a sum of 150,000 US dollars (£96,300) allegedly paid between May 1 2004 and November 28 2007.

Proceeding