SOCCER:TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR manager Harry Redknapp has denied lying under oath at his tax evasion trial, describing the prosecution claims as an insult.

The 64-year-old said the £189,000 (€227,000) paid into his offshore account in Monaco was not given to him as bonuses, but was given to him as a personal investment fund by Milan Mandaric, his Portsmouth boss at the time and co-accused.

When John Black QC, prosecuting, put it to Redknapp that he had been telling “a pack of lies”, the football manager grew visibly emotional.

“You think I’ve put my hand on the Bible and told lies? That’s an insult, Mr Black, that’s an insult,” he said. “Everything I’ve told you has been the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Bring the Bible up here again and I will put my hand on it.”

He hit back at suggestions that he had deliberately sought to evade tax, adding: “I’m the most ungreedy person you have met, Mr Black.”

Redknapp had previously described himself as a bit of a gambler saying that his poor investment sense had nearly “wiped out” his son Jamie.

Earlier, Redknapp admitted at Southwark crown court that he lied to a News of the World journalist about how an initial payment of $145,000 (£93,100 – €112,000) came to be in his Monaco account. Redknapp said he had told Rob Beasley it was a bonus for the sale of Peter Crouch to Aston Villa in 2002 because he wanted to get Beasley off the phone.

“I don’t have to tell Mr Beasley the truth,” said Redknapp. “I have to tell the police the truth, but not Mr Beasley.”

Redknapp and Mandaric are accused of cheating the public revenue over sums totalling £189,000. They deny the payments were bonuses, arguing that the Monaco account was set up purely to provide personal investment opportunities for Redknapp.

“I only asked Mr Mandaric once about the account – the away win at Blackburn (in 2004),” Redknapp said. “He said ‘Disaster, Harry’ – I didn’t ask again.”

Redknapp said the account was no secret. “I told all the boys at Portsmouth about it, I told Quest about it, that’s how secret it was. As far as I was concerned, it was the most unimportant thing in my life, that account.”

Redknapp insisted the first sum paid into the Monaco account was a personal investment. Although he felt he was due 10 per cent on the sale of Crouch, he had settled on 5 per cent after being told that was all he was contractually entitled to.

He had always considered the payments to be linked to Crouch.

“In my mind it was always related to Crouch even though it wasn’t connected. I felt morally I was due that money even though legally I wasn’t.”

If Mandaric had agreed to the further 5 per cent, he could have arranged it through the club. Neither he nor Mandaric was “silly” enough to have embarked on such a course to evade so little money in tax.

The trial heard from the TV presenter and former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson, who paid tribute to the work Redknapp had done for the charity Wilson and his wife set up in memory of their daughter Anna, who died from cancer in 1998.

Redknapp and Mandaric deny two counts of cheating the public revenue. The trial continues.