Noel Edmonds has met with police to discuss his ongoing battle with Lloyds over his claims the bank cost him millions of pounds.
The 68-year-old TV presenter met with Thames Valley Police at an Oxford police station to discuss his £300million claim against them.
Mr Edmonds, arriving at the station with his lawyer and a film crew, claims he was brought to the ‘brink of emotional annihilation’ 12 years ago, after his business empire collapsed, due to corrupt financiers plundering his fortune.
His business Unique Group was ravaged by the financial crisis at the hands of the HBOS bank, which was taken over by Lloyds.
Despite the Deal or No Deal star’s £300m claim, Lloyds has only set aside £100m to cover the claims of 67 customers.
Noel Edmonds met with Thames Valley Police to discuss his ongoing battle with Lloyds over his claims the bank cost him millions of pounds
Mr Edmonds described Professor Russel Griggs, the man in charge of Lloyds’ handling over compensation claims, to Star Wars character Jabba the Hut and questioned his experience to handle such a task.
Griggs has not included Mr Edmonds as part of the review process and the TV host is set to go to arbitration instead.
‘I’ve [had] lots of calls from people to say ‘are you not angry?’. Well I suppose I am,” Griggs said.
‘But you can’t really get angry, you’ve got to get on with the job.’
Ex-HBOS financiers were jailed earlier this year for carrying out a £245 million loans scams which destroyed several businesses, including that of Edmonds, before they squandered the profits on high-end prostitutes and luxury holidays.
Lloyds, which rescued HBOS during the financial crisis, said in April it would begin making compensation offers to fraud victims in May from a £100 million pot, with payments expected to begin in June.
During the height of his depression, Mr Edmonds said he felt so low he decided to take his own life, writing a letter to his ex-wife and making audio notes for his daughters, Charlotte, Lorna, Olivia and Alice.
Mr Edmonds, arriving at the Oxford station with his lawyer and a film crew, claims he was brought to the ‘brink of emotional annihilation’
In an emotional interview for ITV, the Deal or No Deal presenter said: ‘My world imploded. And I lost my home. I went to a very dark space.
‘The only way I can describe it is it is the darkest space that the human mind ever.’
After recording the messages for his family, Edmonds went to wood near his home in Devon, with a bottle of vodka and prescription pills.
Mr Edmonds with wife Liz in 2008 (left) and discussing his battle with depression during an emotional interview with ITV (right)
He said: ‘The fact that I did not become another suicide statistic is solely due to the swift response of a Devon ambulance crew and the compassionate support of the Priory in Bristol.’
Edmonds said his business collapse cost him his: ‘marriage, my family, my businesses, my longstanding friend and business partner; my income, my investments, my self-respect, my reputation, my privacy, my physical and mental health.
‘It cost me my security, my image rights, my collection of classic cars – and very nearly my life.’
Edmonds with three of his daughters at the BAFTAs in 2006, just a year after he tried to take his own life