The 30-year saga began in 1993 when the couple sold their holiday tour business and their bungalow in Comrie, Perthshire, the year after.
Mr Lockett said he had a company overdraft and a business loan with RBS. After his home sold for £131,000, he’d expected to recouple around £20,000 in profit.
He later became concerned when this windfall never materialised Barclays refused to say how much of their money had been used to settle existing debts.
Mr Lockett said: “I had a personal account for them as well as for my mortgage, and when everything was settled up, we just never got a statement from RBS about what they’d done with the money.
“We tried and tried and tried to get a meeting with them to find out where they were at, but nothing ever happened We never got a penny from the house sale.”
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Five years later, in 1998, Mr Lockett instructed solicitors to look into his case, but the firm was struck off by the Law Society for malpractice just a few years later.
He later found out that the lawyers had lodged his papers with the courts incorrectly, meaning no further legal action was possible as it was outside the six-year legal limit.
Mr Lockett repeatedly requested meetings but has claimed he was repeatedly “rebuffed” by the bank. After key paperwork when missing he made the decision to launch further legal action.
A forensic lawyer who looked into their case filed a report saying they should be paid around £151,000 in compensation. Despite the evidence, RBS has rejected the couple’s claim saying that they had “fully complied with regulatory requirements for record-keeping in this case”.
The situation has left Mr Lockett and his wife at financial rock bottom as they faced being left to the streets.
He told the Mirror: “I’m pretty disgusted that they can treat people the way they do and not even grant a meeting to talk about something.
“They were presented with a legal document pointing out the errors and what the problems were, and they can still say ‘We don’t want to meet’ or ‘There’s nothing to say’ – it’s totally wrong.
“A term they use in the banking industry is ‘duty of care’. Well, they’ve got no duty of care at all. We are the innocent victims in all of this. It has totally ruined our lives.”
Mr Lockett added: “We have a reasonable flat, but it’s not ours and our furnishings are still in storage, as we can’t find a home to put them in – and that costs money as well.
“And if this landlord suddenly said, ‘I’m sorry, that’s the end now. You’ve got to go,’ I don’t really know where we would go or what we would do.”
A spokesperson for RBS Bank said: “Following thorough internal investigations over a 30-year period, extensive dialogue with Mr Lockett, and an external review by the Ombudsman in 2011 which found in the bank’s favour, we reject Mr Lockett’s claims.
“We have considered the Menzies report in full and determined that it does not contain any evidence that contradicts our findings to date. The bank has fully complied with regulatory requirements for record-keeping in this case.
“Whilst we always strive to resolve outstanding issues for customers, unfortunately, this is not always possible, and we have taken the rare decision not to revisit this complaint unless new evidence is provided to us.”
