Businessman Harold Darrell doesn?t deny he owed more than $700,000 to the Bank of Bermuda, and that he was six years past due on the debt.

He also doesn?t deny bank officers were helpful enough to allow him restructure his repayment of the debt, and to accord him a few months without interest.

What the aggrieved businessman won?t concede is a charge that his motive in filing a racial discrimination complaint against 17 bank directors was financially-driven.

Mr. Darrell charges the bank did not handle a confidentiality breach from 1996 properly. And he alleges the bank?s directors did not investigate and resolve his complaint because he and his witnesses are black. He?s waited five years for the matter to come before a Human Rights Tribunal. Jeffrey Elkinson, lawyer for 16 of the respondents, suggested that Mr. Darrell had not been wholly honest in his reasons for brining a separate, a civil case against the bank for the alleged breach.

That matter is to be tried separately in a November Supreme Court case, with Mr. Darrell charging the leak closed off financing avenues for the cable television business he was trying to get off the ground.

During yesterday?s hearing, Mr. Darrell said he has not wavered from 1996 until now in trying to get his business going, and agreed that he previously had a commitment for $1.2 million from John Irving Pearman, on top of $2 million in seed money he?d put in himself.

He maintained the bank?s breach, by which an associate he was negotiating with learned of cash flow woes, had kept him from securing additional funding. And he said bank officers knew he had some funding in place. Mr. Elkinson charged he had not been honest with the bank about financing, and was wrong to bring a civil suit under the basis of financial hardship when also charging that a separate licensing issue had caused him problems.

?He is telling one person one thing in one place and another in another place for his own financial gain,? Mr. Elkinson said.

Throughout two days of cross-examination by Mr. Elkinson and Saul Froomkin, lawyer for former bank chief executive Henry Smith, Mr. Darrell has, at turns, refused to answer questions related to his loans or the breach, either because of irrelevance or not to prejudice the November trial.

Both lawyers have said, after objections from the witness and his lawyer to broadly personal questions, that their purpose was to test Mr. Darrell?s motive, and his credibility.

Mr. Darrell said he realised he hadn?t been a good customer for the bank. ?My credibility sucks, I admit that,? he said, on several occasion. On another, he said ?drugs? was where he?d got money to fund a purchase. And he didn?t deny altercations with UBP MP Louise Jackson, a respondent, and separately, with former Telecommunications Minister Renee Webb.

But whatever his track record, he said he was before the Tribunal for one reason to have his complaint decided. And if his motive had been financial, as Mr. Elkinson and Mr. Froomkin allege, he would have accepted the ?millions? of dollars offered by the bank to settle the matter. Mr. Darrell said he gave serious thought to settling. The battle has taken its toll on his family and his business. He backed away from any deals because he said he couldn?t ?live with myself? if he sold out.

?It is not about the money, there is something wrong down there,? he said. ?I rejected the money.?

On Monday, Mr. Darrell said the bank was a racially discriminatory institution, with black businessmen its worst victims.

?You are trying to make this about money,? he told Mr. Elkinson. ?You are twisting the facts.?

He said he expected some compensation for the ?bank?s arrogance and racial profiling? but that didn?t mean he wanted a monetary settlement.

Mr. Elkinson charged back that Mr. Darrell had made a complaint each time pressure was put on him to pay the bank his outstanding debt. ?This is just a business ploy,? he said.

Mr. Darrell?s lawyer, Anthony Cottle, has the opportunity to re-examine Mr. Darrell this morning, to clarify points brought up in cross examination. Chairman Paul King has ruled he cannot go over questions that Mr. Darrell declined to speak to.

Mr. Cottle failed yesterday to have the bank ordered to turn over five years of board meeting minutes.

The bank maintains that it has already filed as evidence any board meeting minutes mentioning Mr. Darrell.

?It is not for the respondents to decide what will disclosed or not,? said Mr. Cottle.

?Justice must appear to be done,? he said, petitioning the board to allow access to the documents, or leave him ?severely handicapped?.

Mr. King denied the request, saying he was puzzled the request was being made six days into the hearing.

Sharon Kirby, who Mr. Darrell alleges was the bank officer that leaked his financial details, is due to take the stand today. She was in court yesterday but was asked to leave because of a legal rule barring witnesses who have not yet testified, and are not party to the action.

The hearing is scheduled to run through tomorrow before being adjourned to January.

Problems with the Booth Hall courtroom, including damp, little ventilation and air conditioning problems, are either to be addressed before the hearing reconvenes in 2006, or it will be moved to another court, Mr. King said yesterday.