AN investment company executive who says that £150,000 went missing from his company account run by the Royal Bank of Scotland has told of his disgust at Scottish justice - after an attempt to settle a ten-year dispute was quashed because a court decided it was time-barred.

George Dosoo, a 65-year-old-father-of two believes Scots law should change to enable justice to be seen to be done in cases such as his after a judge accepted that he had a relevant case.

He says financial issues caused by the 'missing' money led to his company LD Partnership having to sell a Scottish hotel - and that he now faces losing his four-bedroomed flat in the Trinity area of Edinburgh as a result.

He also said that the fallout relating to the row led to his 45-year-old wife Andrea having a miscarriage.

The case became part of a series of complaints about RBS's now-inoperative Global Restructuring Group (GRG), which was found to have mistreated thousands of business customers in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

The now-defunct GRG gained notoriety for pushing companies into bankruptcy and stripping assets in what bank officials privately described as a “dash for cash”.

Some customers blamed RBS for their financial ruin and called for compensation from the bank.

RBS had already accepted that in a complaint relating to the bank's handling of the LD Partnership's  affairs in December, 2017 that it had acted "unreasonably" in calling up a loan facility over the purchase of the hotel.

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Key to the concerns over justice is the Scottish law principal of 'prescription' as governed by the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, which states that claims must be raised within five years.

It has been established by the courts that the five year period runs from the date that the person raising the claim became aware, or should have been aware with reasonable diligence that they had suffered a loss.

Judge Lord Clark's decision came while he dismissed a claim by RBS that there was no relevant case made for the court to return the funds with interest - a sum estimated at £250,000 He said that that claim "cannot be dismissed as irrelevant".

Lord Clark said: "Proceeding upon the basis that the allegation is that a sum just short of £150,000 was debited from [LD Partnership's] account but not applied as a loan payment and is to be accounted for by RBS, this claim is relatively straightforward and [RBS's] challenge to relevancy... must fail."

The judge said that if the case had not been dismissed on grounds that it was time-barred it would have proceeded.

He said that the fact the business took up various complaint procedures from the point that the alleged missing funds was discovered, was not enough to interrupt any time-bar.

RBS refutes any suggestion it improperly withdrew funds from LD Partnership's account.

The Herald: The County Hotel in Dalkeith

Mr Dosoo, who with his business partner Brian Leslie set up the firm of LD Partnership for the purpose of purchasing the County Hotel in Dalkeith with a 20-year loan worth £2.08m from RBS says the time-bar has denied him the right to justice and believes the law should be changed.

He said he only began taking the case to court as a last resort after other avenues had failed.

He has spent over a decade trying to recover the money - lodging three complaints with the Financial Ombudsman (FO) between 2012 and 2020 and says he found that in each time they were unable to investigate.

He said he has approached Police Scotland claiming fraud in 2017 and was visited by two police officers. But Police Scotland told him it was a civil matter and that they could not investigate.

He said: "What is very worrying is the fact that here, a regulated bank can do this and the regulators, police and the courts cannot find ways of holding the bank to account."

Mr Dosoo, who has two children, Lucia (15)  and Phoenix (10) said there should be changes made to enable justice to at least be seen to be done.

He said: "There is nowhere for me to go to get a hearing let alone justice. It can't be right.

"We are talking about people's livelihoods. It is important that courts do the right thing."

He said the judgement means that banking regulators, the police and now the Court of Session have declined to help LD Partnership to seek justice and have the missing funds returned.

"It is difficult to understand why we got permission to go to court in the first place after seeing the evidence and concluding that it is [time-barred]. The courts have not helped," he said.

The Herald: Signage outside the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters in Edinburgh.

"I feel let down by Scottish justice. Everything we put into the business is lost.

"There has to be a way to get justice, but I haven't found it so far yet."

Deirdre Brock, the SNP MP for Edinburgh North and Leith has raised the case with Andrew Griffith, the economic secretary to the Treasury and City minister.

The SNP House of Commons business spokesperson says in a letter: "It is not clear to me, nor to my constituent, why the Financial Ombudsman would lack capacity in this case, nor why there would be any areas of bank loan insurance and repayment which would not be covered by a financial regulatory body.

"Mr Dosoo says this loss bears heavily on him and his family, after so many years of frustration and stress in contesting the matter. In light of all this, I seek your advice about how Mr Dosoo might now proceed.

"I also wonder whether you will consider looking at the situation outlined to consider whether there are any changes required to the regulatory landscape which might better support and protect business loanees finding themselves in this same situation."

Mr Dosoo said the issue was not discovered till 2012, when consulting a legal advisor who reviewed their account. A judgement by the Financial Ombudsman in September, 2016, said a complaint about movements on the account in 2005 and 2006 were raised too late to be considered.

He says the dispute began after carrying out a debt reduction exercise in November, 2009.

In early 2010, LD received an email making an offer to buy the hotel for £1.6m which was rejected as the business felt it was valued at £2.25m.

LD said they later discovered the offer was also sent to RBS and claim an email was sent saying that that if the offer was not accepted they would go to court to take over the hotel.

The firm say there was a forced sale of the hotel for £1.65m in June 2010 and all employees were transferred to the limited company that bought it.

After the sale, he says that his wife lost her job at the hotel and had a miscarriage "due to the stress".

After an analysis of bank statements and a completion statement requested from RBS Mr Dosoo claims to have found that various amounts debited totalling £142,549.55 and a further £7,336.85 were made "without a mandate and without authority".

He said he complained to RBS and asked to disclose where the funds were. In 2012, the bank denied that there was a bank error over any alleged missing funds and referred him to the Financial Ombudsman.

In 2016, after Mr Dosoo took the missing funds complaint back to RBS, the bank told him in a letter that the alleged issue took place outside the bank's retention period, which was six years and that the information necessary to complete a thorough probe was "no longer available" and that they were unable to fully investigate.

When a separate complaint which went through the bank's GRG complaints process was made in 2017, the bank accepted it was "inappropriate" for the bank to issue letters of demand when the loan facility was only 11 days in arrears "especially given that restructuring discussions had been taking place".

RBS told Mr Dosoo that it was accepted that there should have been a discussions over "alternative strategies" for repaying any debt and said "we apologise for the bank's shortcomings in that regard". It did not, however accept that it forced LD Partnership to sell the hotel at a significant loss.

In response to LD Partnership's missing funds claim, RBS said: “The bank considers this case closed after the court found that Mr Dosoo’s claim was prescribed [time-barred] in its judgement. The bank refutes any suggestion it improperly withdrew funds from the Partnership’s account, and will not be making any further comment on this case.”

 RBS, now known as the NatWest Group, previously apologised for inappropriate activities at the now-defunct GRG unit but never ­acknowledged any unlawful conduct.

The bank is still being pursued for compensation by customers who claim their businesses were either crippled or destroyed after being targeted by GRG. Many have alleged the division’s actions inflicted ­damage on their mental health.

Earlier this year fural affairs minister Mairi Gougeon urged Police Scotland to investigate alleged historical wrongdoing at RBS that bankrupted a family in her Angus North and Mearns constituency. Ms Gougeon’s office contacted the force on behalf of the Henderson family, who claim RBS refused to allow them to settle outstanding business loans, costing them £500,000 in interest payments. RBS  denied the allegation.

A Police Scotland spokesman aid: “Officers were made aware of reports of money being taken from a business bank account on December, 7, 2017.

“Advice was given to the complainer that this was a civil matter. There was no further police involvement.”