His offending was described as ‘calculated and persistent’.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court(Image: Daily Record)
A crooked bank manager who bribed financially vulnerable customers to pay him more than £270,000 in exchange for preferential financial treatment has been jailed.
Stuart Holloway forced two businessmen to transfer the huge amounts of cash into his personal bank account while employed as a Relationship Manager with the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Holloway, 49, was working within the banking giant’s notorious Global Restructuring Group (GRG) when he was paid a total of £274,811 after promising the customers he could reduce their liability to debts.
One man was forced to hand over £20,000 to pay for one of Holloway’s parent’s wedding while a second victim had to sell his Spanish holiday home to pay off the devious bank boss.
Holloway, from Prestonpans, East Lothian, was said to have carried out the financial scam to feed his “severe gambling difficulties”.
The former bank manager pleaded guilty to two amended charges under Section 2 of the Bribery Act 2010 when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court earlier this year.
He admitted requesting payment from a customer in return for removing his and his wife’s personal liability for their debts with the Royal Bank of Scotland between March 22, 2012 and February 28, 2013.
He also pled guilty to a charge of requesting payment of money in return of reducing the value of liability to RBS with a view to allowing the customer and his wife to transfer their banking to another institution between March 27, 2012 and October 27, 2015.
The GRG unit was set up to help struggling businesses but subsequently came to be seen as harmful to the companies it was designed to support.
A Financial Conduct Authority report completed in 2014 but not published until 2018 found evidence of widespread mistreatment.
The court was told the GRG was set up to help businesses with a debt level of more than £1M and were experiencing “some level of financial distress”.
The purpose of the GRG was to work with the customers to try and protect the bank’s capital and attempt to turn the business around and return the client to mainstream banking.
Prosecutor Sanah Idrees said Holloway started working within the GRG as a Relationship Manager in 2010 and took voluntary redundancy in 2016.
Ms Idrees said RBS policy allowed for gifts and hospitality between customers and staff to be “justifiable, proportionate and appropriate” and any gifts over £100 had to be approved by a manager.
Ms Idrees said: “The accused did not make any declaration of gifts, when required to do so, during the relevant periods.”
The court was told businessman Gerard D’Agostino had a portfolio including pubs and property with debts of around £1.8M and moved his banking to the GRG in 2012.
Holloway held a series of meetings with the man where he told him he “might be sequestered” if he did not sell his assets.
The fiscal depute said: “At the third meeting the accused told Mr D’Agostino one of his parents was remarrying and he needed £20,000 to pay for it.
“The accused asked whether Mr D’Agostino could help and that the accused could ‘sort it and make funds available’.
“Mr D’Agostino paid the £20,000 to the accused by bank transfer.
“At a further meeting the accused advised Mr D’Agostino that he would remove his wife’s personal liability for the debts of the company in return for money.
“The accused continuously asked for money in order not sequestrate Mr D’Agostino’s wife or release her from the personal guarantee.”
The court heard the customer subsequently paid off his £1.8M debt to the bank by selling a property and his family home.
Mr D’Agostino made total payments to Holloway of £109,511 over an 11 month period.
Businessman James Gilmour was also persuaded to move his banking to the GRG to get “a better deal on his accounts” after meeting Holloway in a bar in Spain in 2012.
Mr Gilmour had assets of £3.9M with loans of £3.2M secured against them and during a meeting “the accused told him there was a lot he could do for him, but nothing was for nothing”.
The fiscal said: “The accused began to repeatedly request payments to his personal bank accounts and accounts of [his parents and a friend].
“The accused’s requests led Mr Gilmour to sell his holiday home in Spain to finance them.
“Mr Gilmour also re-mortgaged the family home at the accused’s suggestion, increasing the mortgage from £90,000 to £590,000 and paying the £500,000 towards the money owed to the bank.”
Mr Gilmour paid a total of £165,300 into several personal bank accounts connected to Holloway over 30 months.
The court heard Holloway’s conduct was reported to RBS bosses by a customer in 2016 and the police were subsequently called in to investigate.
Holloway returned to the dock for sentencing yesterday where defence advocate Scott Dignan said his client “had in no way threatened and in no way attempted to extort anyone”.
Mr Dignan said: “He fully accepts he was in a position of trust due to his employment and in the course of his employment he breached that trust.”
The lawyer added: “The entirety of the funds paid to Mr Holloway were unfortunately part of his severe gambling difficulties that began in 2010.
“Mr Holloway highlights how absurd the addiction became to the extent despite earning a six figure salary he was pawning DVDs to get more funds.”
Sheriff Charles Walls described the offending as “calculated and persistent” and said “the offences and the sums involved are high as are your culpability and harm”.
The sheriff added: “In all the circumstances there is no alternative to mark this offence other than the imposition of a custodial sentence.”
Holloway was sentenced to 21 months in custody.
RBS is now part of NatWest Group.