I was bullied into signing confession, Keane weeps to jury

Published on Tuesday 25 August 2009 22:22

THE former chairman of Livingston Football Club wept yesterday as he described how he was browbeaten by a business partner into making a false confession to a bank fraud.

Dominic Keane told a jury he and Willie Haughey had been discussing a failure to repay about 2 million to the Royal Bank of Scotland.

He alleged Mr Haughey, the multi-millionaire businessman with whom he had served on the board of Celtic, went "absolutely ballistic" and insisted that he should write a letter stating that he alone was responsible.

Keane cried in the witness box at the High Court in Edinburgh as he continued: "He was sitting there shouting and bawling … I could not take any more … I just wanted peace … I wrote a letter … it was not true."

Mr Haughey's signature is alleged to have been forged on paperwork tying him to the loan, but Keane maintained his associate had signed the documents. He said he remembered the occasion well, as it had been at Hampden Park on one of Livingston's finest days, their first national cup semi-final.

"We executed these documents in one of the lounges upstairs. It is Willie Haughey's signature … I cannot understand why he continues with this pretence," Keane said.

Keane, 54, of Glasgow, denies a charge of forming a fraudulent scheme to obtain money from RBS in 2001.

Initially, it was part of the indictment that he had duped Mr Haughey, 53, into signing a document in 1999 which was used to obtain a 1.75 million loan from the bank to enable Livingston to build a new stand, but the Crown has dropped that claim.

The alleged offence is now having pretended to lottery winner John McGuinness, 45, a club director, that Mr Haughey had signed up to refinancing the loan in 2001, and presenting documents with forged "W Haughey" signatures to the bank.

Mr McGuinness has said he would not have signed if he had not thought that Mr Haughey had also agreed to be liable for repaying the loan.

Keane insisted in his evidence yesterday that he and the other two men had signed up to be liable for the loan.

The club was put into administration in 2004, and he went to Mr Haughey's home on a Sunday evening in January 2005 to discuss non-payment of the loan.

"He went absolutely ballistic. He said, 'This is a mess. I want it sorted. It's all your fault'. He sat on the couch, shouting and shouting and shouting. I thought to myself, 'This guy has lost the plot completely'. I was tired, exhausted.

"He said he wanted a letter. I was to take responsibility… I had used his name and he had not signed the documents.

"He called it an insurance policy against the bank. He was telling me what to do, to cover his back," said Keane.

Keane told the jury the "confession" was untrue, and he could not conceive of defrauding anyone. He said he had been sued by RBS, had put up no defence and was declared bankrupt.

The trial continues.