Twenty years after leaving jail for bringing down Barings Bank, the ex-trader has a new life in Ireland – but not everyone has forgiven him

Twenty years after he emerged from jail as the world’s most notorious rogue trader, not everyone has forgiven Nick Leeson. The boy from Watford who gambled away £862m and brought down Barings Bank served four years, but for some members of the financial industry, that was too lenient.

One fund manager sidled up to Leeson at a London event and confided a vigilante fantasy. “He told me he’d always sworn that if he got a life-threatening illness, he’d come to Ireland and kill me,” says Leeson, who now lives in Galway.

As a confession, or threat, it was not exactly chilling. The banker was tipsy and made the declaration in front of colleagues. But it underlined the enduring memory of – and in some quarters anger at – what Leeson did.

As the 27-year-old star trader of Barings, one of the world’s oldest merchant banks, Leeson ratcheted up – and concealed – mega-losses in speculative and illegal trades from the Singapore office. The bank collapsed in 1995. Leeson left a curt note – “I’m sorry” – and fled. Caught and extradited to Singapore, he admitted forgery and cheating and served four years in Changi prison.

This week is the 20th anniversary of his release, return to the UK and embarkation on a path that led to a sanctuary of sorts in the Republic of Ireland.

Leeson, now 52, lives with his Irish wife, Leona, and their teenage son in the west of the country, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. His new home offers a windswept contrast to the trading bear pits of London and Singapore.

But Leeson is not detached from the financial world. Despite the apparent seclusion, he is again profiting from international banking – this time legally, if indirectly, by talking about it. “As bad as I was to the world of banking, it’s been good to me,” he says. “It keeps shooting itself in the foot. People want to know why.”

The former derivatives trader earns high fees for giving talks about regulation and shady financial practices to financial industry audiences in Britain, the US, Australia and South Africa.

Skulduggery, incompetence and volatility in global markets before and since the 2007 crash have put a premium on insights from the original Rogue Trader – the title of Leeson’s autobiography and the 1999 film adaptation that starred Ewan McGregor. He also offers tips on handling stress and adversity.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ewan McGregor as Nick Leeson in the 1999 film Rogue Trader. Photograph: Imagenet

“It’s quite lucrative. Two events a month is enough to keep me in the manner to which I’m accustomed,” he says. An injunction after his conviction made Leeson personally liable for £100m, but the statute of limitations expired, lifting a cap on earnings, he adds.

“I accepted what the judge gave me and everything that’s happened since – the fact there’s still a lot of stigma around my name.

“If you’re going to live the rest of your life, you’re going take advantage of the second opportunity you’ve been given and move on. That doesn’t please everybody,” he says, citing the would-be vigilante.

On the after-dinner circuit, the son of a plasterer enjoys rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, Stephen Fry and Aron Ralston, the American hiker who amputated his arm with a penknife to save his life.

In return, he must continuously revisit the epic debacle – “the most embarrassing period of my life” – that has defined him.

“I always wanted to be remembered for being successful and achieving something. I had a very exalted opinion of what success was. But I messed up – I made some stupid mistakes, I compounded them with even bigger ones.”

Leeson says some colleagues used his fall to mask their own wrongdoings and the system’s flaws, but this did not diminish his responsibility: “I was rightly punished and rightly went to jail.” He has no sympathy for other rogue traders who went on to rack up even bigger losses.

While in prison, Leeson contracted colon cancer and was divorced by his first wife. “It looks like a tiny dot now, but at the time it was the most difficult period of my life. You’re locked up 23 hours a day; you sleep on a rough, uneven floor; everybody else is a Triad gang member. It’s 100 degrees when you get up in the morning and gets hotter during the day.” He still loathes heat.

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He moved to Galway after marrying Leona, a beautician, in 2003. Working as a commercial manager for Galway United Football Club and as a debt counsellor rooted him in the community.

Leeson feels welcome, despite the occasional taunts: “Some people say, ‘Oh, that’s the idiot that broke the bank.’”

Despite Brexit, Leeson has no intention of applying for Irish citizenship, nor switching his sporting allegiances. “I have to support England – I’m English. I can’t change that.”

Appearing on Celebrity Big Brother last year allowed him to humanise his notoriety and introduced him to younger viewers unfamiliar with the fall of Barings, he says. It also boosted his bank account: “The amount of money on offer got a little bit silly.”