Redknapp Trial – QC says Spurs boss condemned 'from his own mouth’

Harry Redknapp's admission of lying to a reporter is “the most compelling and important evidence" in his tax evasion case, a court heard today.

Redknapp claimed in his evidence this week that, in 2009, he gave News of the World journalist Rob Beasley false information about why more than £90,000 was paid into his Monaco bank account.

The Tottenham boss told London's Southwark Crown Court that the money was given to him in 2002 by Milan Mandaric, his former boss at Portsmouth Football Club, as an investment and was not a bonus, as he had told Beasley.

Redknapp told the court on Thursday: "I don't have to tell Mr Beasley the truth. I have to tell police the truth, not Mr Beasley, he's a News of the World reporter."

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

Mr Black told 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."

Mr Black added: "The problem for Mr Redknapp was that he knew perfectly well what was happening, and he in an unguarded moment on a tape with the News of the World journalist told it as it was. That in a sense condemns him from his own mouth."

The prosecutor also 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 Poole, Dorset, and Mandaric, of Oadby, Leicestershire, deny two counts of cheating the public revenue when Redknapp was manager of Portsmouth.

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

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