Redknapp: Deals put home at risk

Harry Redknapp told police his home was at risk after he lost millions of pounds in disastrous investments, a court has heard.

The Tottenham Hotspur boss urged detectives to ask his solicitor if he had "ever come across anyone as bad, businesswise". He said he lost £6 million in a property venture in Southsea, Hampshire, and had squandered £250,000 to help his friend, Jim Smith, keep his managerial job at Oxford United.

Redknapp - tipped as a future England boss - also said he had paid £1 million in tax in 2008, before adding: "We are givers not takers."

During interviews with City of London police, Redknapp said: "I am not a tax fiddler, I am not any kind of tax fiddler, never have been in my life."

In transcripts read out at Southwark Crown Court, Redknapp said he had paid £8.5 million on property in Southsea. He said he had a chance to share the investment with a Samir Khan, described as a business associate of former England goalkeeper David James.

Redknapp told officers: "I've signed a form that says he's half in, and he ain't put no money in, and I've signed the forms now, you can ask my solicitor in Bournemouth, and they can't believe that I didn't read anything. I thought he said 'I'll meet you half way, I'll put half in what you put in'.

"He put half in what I put in up to that point and my own money was about two hundred grand, now he's in for nothing and he has half the profit.

"The only downside is its only worth four million pound now and I've done like six million you know, my house is up against it but that's where I'm at, that's how useless I am with things, and you can check with my solicitor if you like. I'll give you my solicitor's name, you ask him if he's ever come across anyone as bad businesswise as I am. Unfortunately I live my life like that."

Redknapp claimed he wrote the Monaco account at the heart of a £189,000 bung allegation "completely out of my life".

Redknapp, 64, of Poole, Dorset, and co-defendant Milan Mandaric, from Oadby, Leicestershire, deny two counts of cheating the public revenue when Redknapp was manager of Portsmouth Football Club.