Former Co-operative Bank boss Paul Flowers has been banned from the financial services industry by the Financial Conduct Authority
Disgraced former Co-operative Bank boss Paul Flowers was today banned from the financial services industry.
Flowers was chair of Co-op Bank between 2010 and 2013, but was forced to step down amid allegations he bought and used illegal drugs, as well as claiming inappropriate expenses.
He was filmed entertaining rent boys during a four-day drug-fuelled house party at his home in Salford, Greater Manchester, before falling asleep with crisps balanced on his nipples.
The Financial Conduct Authority watchdog found his conduct showed a ‘lack of fitness and propriety’ required to work in financial services.
Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: ‘The role of chair occupies a unique place of trust and influence.
‘The chair is pivotal in setting expectations of a company’s culture, values and behaviours. Mr Flowers failed in his duty to lead by example and to meet the high standards of integrity and probity demanded by the role.
‘These high standards are what the financial services industry and the wider community rightly expect of its senior individuals. Where a chair, or other senior individual, fails to discharge these standards the FCA will hold them to account.
The FCA found he used his work mobile phone to make a ‘inappropriate telephone calls to a premium rate chat line’ in breach of Co-op Group and Co-op Bank policies.
It also found he ‘used his work email account to send and receive sexually explicit and otherwise inappropriate messages, and to discuss illegal drugs’, again in breach of Co-op policies despite having been warned about his earlier misconduct.
In a damning statement, the watchdog said it believes Mr Flowers’ disregard for the standards he is expected to meet demonstrates a ‘lack of integrity’ and that any future involvement by Mr Flowers in the financial services industry risks ‘undermining consumer and market confidence’.
Flowers, who was a Methodist minister, was chair of the Co-op Bank between April 15, 2010 and June 5, 2013.
The disgraced former bank boss’ seedy lifestyle was first exposed in November 2013 when he was caught on camera buying and using illegal drugs including crack cocaine, crystal meth and katamine.
In the months following the revelations, Flowers, who was dubbed the ‘Crystal Methodist’, admitted he had ‘sinned’ and said he had received ‘life-changing’ treatment in rehab.
But in March 2016 he was filmed entertaining rent boys during a four-day drug-fuelled house party.
In footage obtained by a Sunday newspaper, Flowers appeared to snort lines of white powder off a plate in his living room in Salford, Greater Manchester before falling asleep with crisps balanced on his nipples.
A rent boy, one of a number who attended the party, told how Flowers had invited him with a text saying: ‘I have Charlie and Katie’, using code names for cocaine and ketamine.
He said that at one point Flowers invited a group out to a rented hot tub in the back garden, which he had hidden from his neighbours’ view with a gazebo.
The source said: ‘We were all naked in there. I wouldn’t like to be the next people hiring that out after what was going on.’