A bank manager told a builder to deposit money through him personally and said only cash should be used, a central London county court was told yesterday. Mr Gordon Lewis (64), of Hertfordshire, England, is suing Allied Irish Banks for £160,000 over what he claims was gross mismanagement of his and his wife's accounts from 1983 till 1988.
The bank in turn is suing Mr Lewis and his former wife, Patricia, for £85,000 in unpaid loans.
Mr Lewis told Judge Michael Rich QC that in October 1983 he and his wife opened an account with the AIB's Isle of Man branch on the advice of bank manager Mr Timothy McHale.
"He said it's best, to make the best interest, in this offshore account.
"Mr McHale said that he looked after several people's accounts and he kept them in his drawer, especially the Isle of Man accounts. We never saw any records of these accounts," Mr Lewis said.
"Mr McHale had said to me if there was any deposits for him he would like them in cash, because it would be much easier to do that.
"Mr McHale said it should be in cash because it is very awkward to do anything else in the Isle of Man."
Mr Lewis said the only documents he and his wife received on the Isle of Man account were small "slips of paper" signed by Mr McHale. He said after Mr McHale left the bank and retired to Ireland in 1989, it took the AIB four years to find the Isle of Man account.
On one occasion Mr McHale reluctantly took a cheque deposit for the account, according to Mr Lewis. He said in 1987 he gave Mr McHale a cheque for £1,200 to be deposited in the Isle of Man account. "I said to him, `You can't have cash every time', and he said, `OK then I will take this as a cheque'."
The case continues today.