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Journalism of Courage
LONDON, July 11: Nick Leeson, the rogue trader who made history as the fraudster who brought down Britain8217;s Barings bank, began on Saturday to give his side of the story for the first time.
In the first part of a serialisation in the Daily Mail here, he detailed the rigours of life in the Singapore jail where he has spent the last three and a half years. He also wrote of his bitterness at the break-up of his marriage, saying he and his former wife Lisa had once agreed on a suicide pact. Leeson said he and Lisa made their pact when he was in Frankfurt, Germany, awaiting extradition to Singapore, and that when he was finally sentenced she promised to wait for him.
He had been held in a top-security prison for illegally concealing trading losses estimated at 1.5 billion dollars, collapsing the 232-year-old bank. Leeson told the Daily Mail he had always intended to get the money back. He added: 8220;I wish to God I8217;d been caught earlier, or that I8217;d put my hands up. I wouldn8217;t have lost my wife, who was everything to me. I wouldn8217;t have gone to prison for four-and-a-half nightmare years. And, who knows, I may not have contracted cancer.8221;
Leeson was diagnosed with colon cancer while in prison and underwent surgery and a six-month course of chemotherapy. He described his life in Tanah Merah prison as harsh, without respite, and so dispiriting that the only way he could get through the days was by writing about his love for Lisa in exercise books every day.
She initially stood by him, flying regularly to Singapore on visits. But they grew apart. She met Horlock, and Leeson said he learnedthey were to get married while he was in hospital awaiting an operation for cancer. 8220;There was a sense of lossit was somebody I8217;d cared about and loved for a long time, but only for five or ten minutes.
8220;You underestimate how resilient and hard I had become. Two days before I had been diagnosed with cancer, my wife was marrying someone else, but I managed to block it out. What else could I do?quot; Now he feels bitter that Horlock dated her while he was in prison. He said: 8220;I genuinely believe he wronged me and whatever anyone says to me will not convince me otherwise8221;.
But he conceded: 8220;She probably made the right decision for herself.8221; The Daily Mail said Leeson would not profit from his story, and any money he would receive would be to pay for his medical expenses. It said the amount it was paying to an independent company for the rights to history was less than the 100,000 pounds 157,000 dollars reported by much of the Media. Britain8217;s High Court has frozen Leeson8217;s assets.
