122.
Mr Evans also acted as Bane’s personal accountant, and prepared his personal tax
returns for him until his retirement in 2002. In his oral evidence Mr Evans was asked
to comment on Bane’s attitude to the payment of tax in the UK, bearing in mind his
voluntary decision to become domiciled in England and the recent agreement which
he had reached with the Inland Revenue to that effect. Mr Evans said to Bane that
this was a pity from a tax point of view, because there would have been substantial
tax advantages to him in remaining non-UK domiciled. However, Bane’s reply had
been “I have come to this country, I love this country and I will pay my taxes just like
an ordinary person”, a reaction which Mr Evans says he was quite amazed and
gratified to hear.
123.
Mr Evans gave evidence in cross-examination about Bane’s love for this country, and
his regard and admiration for Mrs Thatcher. Bane had told him that he was known at
school as “Bane English” because of his obsession with England, and had read many
of Dickens’ novels, possibly in Serbo-Croat. When he came to England, his
childhood dreams had come to fruition and it had been a natural thing for him to wish
to become a British citizen, which he did in 1975.
124.
In the 18 months between his initial appointment and the liquidation of Transtrade
UK Ltd Mr Evans was in regular contact with Bane. Their offices were nearby, and
they frequently met at Bane’s office or for lunch. After the liquidation of Transtrade,
their meetings became less frequent but their relationship had already developed into
a firm personal friendship which continued until Bane’s death. Mr Evans and his wife
first went on holiday with Bane to Burgundy in the summer of 1989, and thereafter
they went on holiday together about another ten times in France, Italy and Spain.
They would also often meet at weekends, sometimes playing golf together. Mr
Evans’ evidence, which was not shaken in cross-examination, was that when Bane
gave him instructions relating to financial matters he did so lucidly and was fully able
to understand his advice and its implications. He agreed that Bane would at times use
extravagant language and rant about dark forces, but said this was something that
Bane could “switch on and off”, and as soon as he had finished his rant, he would
carry on as normal. In a vivid simile, he said it was like a bird being let out of a cage:
when the outburst was over, the bird would go back again and carry on as before. He
also used the term “encapsulated” to describe this behaviour, saying that it did not
really affect anything that he (Mr Evans) was ever concerned with. I suspect that Mr
Evans found the word “encapsulated” in one of the expert reports, although he denied
this in cross-examination and said that the word had occurred to him independently
and he had looked it up in the dictionary on the eve of giving his evidence. Whatever
the source of the phrase, however, it aptly describes a feature noted by several of the
witnesses, namely how Bane would suddenly switch from normal behaviour and
language to delusional ranting and vice versa. When the bird was out of the cage, Mr
Evans would not seek to argue with Bane but would remain silent until normality had
returned. He described the dark forces listed by Bane as being “banks, accountants,
solicitors, pharmaceutical companies and others, and I think family”, and said that
Bane quite often saw himself as a Greek hero fighting against them, such as Ajax or
Hercules. Mr Evans regarded this self-identification by Bane with heroes such as
Ajax as purely figurative, and did not think for a moment that Bane actually thought
he was Ajax. In a similar vein he would often refer to his Bentley car as “Pegasus”.