Harry Redknapp feigned ignorance of Monaco bank account, court hears Football manager Harry Redknapp arrives at Southwark crown court, London, where he is on trial for tax evasion. Harry Redknapp "feigned almost complete ignorance" of an offshore bank account he had failed to declare to tax authorities for six years, despite having flown to Monaco to open the account in 2002, a court has heard. Redknapp only revealed the existence of the account, into which secret payments totalling £189,500 had been deposited, when being questioned as part of a 2008 inquiry into financial irregularities in the Premier League. "Is it the case that Mr Redknapp could be unaware of the account" given that he had personally opened it, asked John Black QC, prosecuting. Redknapp, currently the manager of Tottenham Hotspur, held the same role at Portsmouth FC in 2002 when the club's then chairman, Milan Mandaric, paid $145,000 (£93,000) into the offshore account. Both men are accused of cheating the public revenue by not paying tax on the payment, and on a second deposit of $150,000 paid into the account by Mandaric. Black said Redknapp had been "feigning almost complete ignorance of its [the account's] existence" when questioned as part of the Quest inquiry under the former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord Stevens. The jury of four women and eight men heard that Redknapp, 64, and Serbian-born Mandaric, 73, now chairman of Sheffield Wednesday, had offered a succession of sometimes contradictory explanations for the account when questioned by police, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and a journalist. "You will see that the payments have been variously characterised as employment income, as a loan, as a gift and in some instances a combination of all or some of them," said Black. Redknapp had failed to disclose details of the account despite having been under investigation by the tax authorities as part of a separate investigation into a similar payment from his former club West Ham over the sale of Rio Ferdinand, Black said. The jury heard details of separate phone interviews both men gave in February 2009 to Rob Beasley, then a reporter at the News of the World, in which Mandaric said the payment had been "a favour to Harry," which was "nothing to do with the football club," in which he offered to make an investment and give Redknapp the profits. "I did something for my friend, away from England, away from football, away from Portsmouth," he had told the reporter. But Redknapp, contacted days later by the same reporter, insisted the payment had been part of his bonus for selling Peter Crouch to Aston Villa, making a £3m profit for the club. He told the reporter he understood Mandaric had already paid tax on the sum in the US, but to be sure he had informed HMRC when he had transferred the money to his British account in 2008. The revenue know about it. There's nothing crooked about it," he told the reporter. He had told Beasley he would "sue the bollocks" off the paper if it reported that it was a bung, the jury was told. Told that Mandaric had described the payment as an investment unrelated to football, Redknapp said: "He don't know what he is fucking talking about. The court was told that when interviewed under police caution in June 2009, Redknapp had said he regarded the sum as a payment from his club, and so "one million per cent" believed that tax and National Insurance had been paid by the club.