Shamed Co-op bank chairman tells of ‘hellish’ public ordeal

SHAMED former Co-op Bank chairman Paul Flowers has told of the “hellish” ordeal he endured as his personal life fell apart last year in the full glare of the media spotlight.
Disgraced Co-op Bank boss Paul Flowers arrives at Stainbeck police station in Leeds to answer bail. Picture: Ross Parry AgencyDisgraced Co-op Bank boss Paul Flowers arrives at Stainbeck police station in Leeds to answer bail. Picture: Ross Parry Agency
Disgraced Co-op Bank boss Paul Flowers arrives at Stainbeck police station in Leeds to answer bail. Picture: Ross Parry Agency

The Methodist minister from Bradford hit the headlines in November when a newspaper alleged he had bought drugs including cannabis, crack cocaine and ketamine.

Now, in his first interview since the scandal broke, Mr Flowers has admitted that he “sinned”.

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He also claimed that, during his time as chairman, he faced pressure from former Treasury Minister Mark Hoban, and indirectly Chancellor George Osborne, to push through an ultimately-unsuccessful deal for the purchase of around 600 branches of the part-nationalised Lloyds bank.

Mr Flowers, 63, told BBC2’s Newsnight programme: “I am in company with every other human being for having my frailties and some fragility exposed.

“Most people get through life without that ever coming into the public domain. But, of course I have sinned in that old fashioned term, which I would rarely use, I have to say.”

Former Bradford councillor Mr Flowers stepped down from the Co-op Bank last summer after three years as chairman. Following November’s newspaper exposé, he was arrested and bailed as part of what West Yorkshire Police described as an “ongoing drug supply investigation”. He says he subsequently underwent a 28-day addictions treatment programme.

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“I found that both cathartic and traumatic, but it actually helped me to look at not so much the superficial issues of the addictions themselves, but the more deep-seated reasons why people resort to any sort of addiction, and for me that was I think life-changing,” said Mr Flowers. “I think I’m now much more secure in my own skin, much more self-aware certainly than I was before. I put that down to the treatment at the hospital and I continue to go there every week for therapy.”

Turning to the Co-op Bank’s aborted Lloyds branches deal, Mr Flowers claimed he had faced “considerable” pressure from the present government to make it happen.

He said: “Remember that the Government was, still is, the major shareholder of that bank because of the structural support that it had need of back in 2008.

“Clearly they wanted a deal which would help them in terms of public finances. They actually said that they were keen on this Co-op becoming a much more significant player with more scale.

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“We would have had about seven or eight per cent of the market if this had gone through and there was pressure, certainly from Mark Hoban, but I believe and know that that originated much higher up with the Chancellor himself.

“Regular calls, regular checks to see whether or not we were progressing well and I mean two or three times a week calls from the junior minister. They wanted a deal and they wanted us to do it. They might say now, ‘no’, but I know that that was what they wanted.”

The Co-op Bank blamed a weak economic outlook and heavy regulatory burdens for the collapse of the Lloyds deal last April. It has since emerged, however, that the Co-op Bank is suffering serious financial problems, caused in part by its purchase of the Britannia Building Society in 2009.

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