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Billionaire West Ham co-owner accused of abusing his power and preying on women for sex
Warning: this story includes descriptions of alleged sexual misconduct and explicit language
Multiple women have accused billionaire businessman and West Ham co-owner David Sullivan of abusing his power and preying on them for sex, in some cases when they were teenagers.
The allegations from seven women have been uncovered in a joint investigation by BBC Panorama and the Times and span decades, starting in the 1980s. All come from women who were in their late teens or early twenties and were young models seeking work at Sullivan's Daily and Sunday Sport newspapers.
They accuse Sullivan of sexually exploitative and predatory behaviour, including pressuring them for sex during business meetings, where he offered to boost their careers if they slept with him or gave him oral sex.
One of them, Florence (not her real name), said she felt forced to have sex with him even though she did not want to.
Sullivan, 77, said he "categorically" denies the claims, which span the period when he made a fortune from pornography, newspapers and football.
On Saturday, hours after BBC Panorama and the Times confirmed we would be publishing this investigation on Monday, he resigned as joint chair of West Ham. He said he wanted to focus on fighting what he called "factually incorrect and entirely false, decades-old allegations concerning my personal life", describing the investigation as "fundamentally unfair".
We can also reveal that Sullivan has separately admitted paying for sex in the 1990s with a girl who, he says, he believed was 16 or 17 years old. Sullivan was in his 40s at the time. It only became illegal to pay for sex with a 16 or 17 year old in 2003.
In the 1980s and 90s, Sullivan was a powerful gatekeeper for women hoping to have a career in glamour modelling. Florence said he had told her during a business meeting at his home that she would be one of his newspapers' "regular girls" if they had sex.
Then aged 20, she tried to make excuses, including that she was on her period, before he manoeuvred her into a bedroom and started having sex with her, she said. Lawyers for Sullivan described her account as implausible.
Two women said they felt they had no choice but to sleep with him to avoid damaging their future modelling careers, and accused Sullivan of abusing his power. "He was taking advantage of young people," one said.
Another former model said when she had tried to leave a meeting with Sullivan after he propositioned her for sex, she found the door was locked, and he only let her go after she began raising her voice.
Most of the women wanted to remain anonymous, in some cases because they fear Sullivan and are concerned about potential repercussions.
Our reporters have corroborated details in their accounts using diary entries, police and other records and interviews with friends and family, who they have confided in.
We have also discovered that eight women have made disclosures about Sullivan's conduct to the Met or Essex Police, including one woman who is part of our investigation.
Sullivan denies all the allegations and was never charged as a result of them.
Our investigation also raises questions for football authorities about what was known about his behaviour.
Florence said she was introduced to Sullivan in 1999 at a business meeting at his home arranged by the Sport's editor-in-chief Tony Livesey - now a BBC Radio 5 Live presenter.
Then a 20-year-old up-and-coming glamour model, she said she arrived at the businessman's Essex mansion with her boyfriend, who waited elsewhere while she went into Sullivan's office.
Florence could not remember every detail, including exactly where her boyfriend was seated, but she has detailed recollections of other aspects of the meeting. It is also recorded in her diary, which recounts how she took an early coach to London costing £14, then a train and then a taxi.
She remembered being staggered by the size and opulence of the home, while Sullivan was at his desk "wearing the scruffiest tracksuit".
Sullivan looked at her modelling portfolio, she said, and then asked her to "freshen up" in a bathroom. Florence said she was so naive that he then had to clarify that he meant he wanted her to strip down to her underwear, which she did.
"I'll give you a little bit of work because you've taken the trouble," she recalled him saying. But she said he then told her in crude language that if she let him have sex with her, "then you'll be one of my regular girls".
"You'll be in all the magazines. I can give you covers, I can give you centrefolds, and you'll be one of my Sport girls," she recalled him saying.
Florence said she panicked and said her boyfriend was outside, but Sullivan was undeterred, saying: "It will only take a minute and he never has to know."
She said she then tried to put him off by telling him she was on her period. "This is the bit that will haunt me forever," she said. "He lifted his pinky in the air - his little finger - and he went, it's all right, I'll only put it in a little bit."
He then manoeuvred her into a bedroom, she said.
She did not want to have sex, she told us, but she cannot be sure how she expressed it and whether he got the message.
She was in "pure panic mode", Florence said, and she is "99.999999%" sure that she was telling him: "I don't want to, I don't want to." But she said she does not know how loud she said that.
"I don't know whether it was a whisper. It wasn't a scream," she said.
Sullivan pulled his jogging bottoms down and then penetrated her, Florence said.
Afterwards, Florence said he told her: "Congratulations, you will be one of our new Sport girls and you're going to get lots of work."
Florence said when reflecting back she has asked herself why she did not fight or cry out for help. She now believes she dissociated during the encounter and there was a "massive power imbalance", she said.
She then got work in the Sport, as she said Sullivan had promised. She said it had made her feel "dirty", "disgusting" and as though she was receiving payment for what she says Sullivan had done to her.
Florence said she did not tell anyone for many years and did not go to the police because she did not think a glamour model would be believed.
She said her encounter with the businessman played a part in a decline in her mental health. "He took away my innocence… I was very suicidal for many years," she added. "Up until very recently, I struggled with my mental health."
We have spoken to three people in whom Florence confided since 2018 about her meeting with Sullivan. As well as viewing her diary entries, we have seen newspaper cuttings and business cards which support aspects of her account.
Lawyers for David Sullivan said Florence's account is "implausible" given the layout of his house.
Livesey said he had "no recollection" of putting a woman on the phone to speak to Sullivan as Florence described and that it had not been part of his role to introduce anyone to him.
He said he had "great sympathy for a woman who may have become a victim", but rejected any suggestion that he had played "any role whatsoever in that scenario" and said he found the allegation "abhorrent".
Throughout his career, Sullivan has boasted of his prolific sex life. He once claimed to have slept with nearly 1,000 women in a year and has also admitted hiring sex workers.
Beneath his public persona, there have long been hints at more sinister, predatory behaviour. In the 1990s, Sullivan was given the nickname "No job/blow job" - a reference to his reputation for asking models to carry out oral sex on him in return for featuring in his publications.
The Guardian newspaper once quoted him as saying: "I've always said what's the point in owning a sweet shop if you can't eat a few sweets."
Some of his associates defend him. Nick Cracknell, a friend and former business partner, said it was "a very much accepted and well-known fact that David slept with a lot of women and he was very open about that".
But our investigation has found that some of those working in the glamour modelling industry had concerns about Sullivan.
One modelling agent told reporters he would warn young models about Sullivan, while another said his company stopped sending the tycoon models because of his reputation for "casting couch" behaviour.
A third agent, however, took a different approach, according to the account of a woman we are calling Rebecca. The female agent had approached Rebecca on the street and promised a glittering glamour model career earning £1,000 a week in London.
But, after arriving in the city, Rebecca said the agent told her she had to do sex work. She said the agent also told her that, to be a model and appear in the Sport newspapers, she would need to have sex for money with Sullivan, someone the agent described as a "very good friend".
"She said to me, just go in there and just do what he says," Rebecca said.
During their meeting in 1998, Sullivan told Rebecca, "don't worry, I won't hurt you," before having anal sex with her, she said. He then told her he would "sort it out for you to go in the paper, don't worry about that", she recalled.
Rebecca said she believed Sullivan "preyed on the vulnerable" and abused his power in "casting couch" scenarios. She said she was particularly susceptible to abuse because she was young, neurodivergent and had been a victim of previous sexual trauma.
"That was the start of a lonely, degrading, dark time in my life," she said.
Many of the women we have spoken to were new to the industry and, unlike Rebecca, said they had been unaware of Sullivan's reputation when they were invited to meetings with him.
Mia - not her real name - was a 20-year-old newcomer when, she said, she had gone to Sullivan's house for a meeting, which she had thought would be about working for the Sport.
She said Sullivan led her upstairs and it then became apparent he expected her to have sex with him.
He asked her to remove her clothes and she went along with what he asked because she felt like she had no choice if she wanted to be in the paper, she said. "The door's shut and you're in someone's house… I was young, I didn't really know what to really do, to be honest."
Sullivan had sex with her, she said, and afterwards he took money out of a safe, giving £50 to her, despite no prior discussion of payment. She said she believes this was to "shut her up", or an attempt to discredit her by making her look like a sex worker.
She described the incident as an abuse of power. "It shouldn't have happened," she said. "He was taking advantage of young people."
After her initial meeting with Sullivan, Mia said she met him again on one other occasion, when she returned to his house. That time, she said, she went with a young woman who - unlike Mia - knew Sullivan would want to do something sexual with her. Mia said the other woman went willingly because she wanted to earn money, after she had told her about what happened during Mia's first visit.
Two women, one in the 1980s and one in the 1990s, said they had been accompanied by their mothers when they met Sullivan. Both accused him of attempting to pressure them into sex.
One, whom we are calling Anna, said she had entered a Sport competition which invited aspiring models to send in amateur photographs in the 1990s, when she was 17.
She had grown up with a violent, abusive father and thought becoming a glamour model was a way to escape. "I thought I could be like Sam Fox and get loads of money and get my own house with my mum," she said.
After applying, she was invited to an industry party at an Essex nightclub, with her mother as a chaperone. She said she was taken aside by Sullivan and he told her he could make her a star if she gave him oral sex.
"This is while my mum's in the same room, so I'm glad I didn't go on my own because God knows what would have happened if I had," said Anna.
She was "a bit scared" and declined the offer, she said. The paper published her photo from the competition, but never offered her any paid work.
A decade earlier in the 1980s, another former model, whom we are calling Wendy, had gone with her mother to Sullivan's home for a business meeting. Aged about 20 at the time, Wendy said he took her alone into an upstairs bedroom and asked her to strip.
"After he'd finished looking me up and down, he said something derogatory about my hips. Then he said, if you want to get anywhere in this industry you need to sleep with me," she recalled.
I just remember thinking, 'well, if I've got to sleep with you then I'd rather not get anywhere.'
She refused to have sex with Sullivan and does not remember being booked for any Sport jobs afterwards.
A teenage model we are calling Beth said she was taken by her agent for a modelling audition in the 1990s to what turned out to be Sullivan's house.
Beth was sent upstairs alone, where she found Sullivan lying in bed wearing a dressing gown with his bare chest on display, she said.
She said he asked her to parade topless beside the bed.
Now a mother, Beth said she looks back and thinks: "God, that was such a vulnerable position that I put myself in as a young girl."
"The men had the power, didn't they?" she added.
Sacha Wall is the only alleged victim of Sullivan's predatory behaviour who wanted to be named by BBC Panorama and the Times alongside an account of her experience.
Then a 24-year-old fledgling glamour model, she said she was expecting a business meeting when she set out for the Essex address she had been given in 1998.
On arrival, she discovered it was Sullivan's private home.
Wall had been working as an insurance broker and looking for a change in career when she decided to have some modelling photographs taken. They had reached Sullivan and he had invited her to meet him.
She recalled being surprised by how scruffily dressed the businessman was when she met him, finding him in flip-flops, some well-worn red shorts and a T-shirt.
He then began looking through her modelling portfolio, his glance moving between her and the photos while he said "very nice, very nice" in a way that made her feel uncomfortable, she said.
She said she was concerned when he told her to follow him upstairs and to undress to her underwear, but decided she was willing to show him her figure to get work as a topless model.
But when he asked me to come and sit next to him, I'm like, what is going on? Like, that's not part of the job interview. So I walk over, I put my bra back on… and I sat as far away as I could get.
Wall said Sullivan leaned over and told her a well-known glamour model was one of his "special friends" and she "could have the same help" if she also became "one of his special friends".
She said she told him: "If you think I'm going to sleep with you to get in the paper, you've got another thing coming."
He looked very shocked as I said that," she continued. "And then said, what, not even a blow job?
And I was just so shocked." She said she told him: "No, definitely not.
She said she then tried to leave the room but discovered he had locked the door.
Wall recalled being "really scared" and said she swore and demanded he open the door, while Sullivan told her to calm down. She said he shouted "you're going about it the hard way" and unlocked the door, before she ran downstairs and out the house.
She later appeared in the Sport, but said she was often given the worst jobs including once working on the paper's phone-in lines.
We have spoken to two people who say Wall told them what happened, including someone who said she told them on the day.
In 2023, Wall decided to make a report to Essex Police in case, she said, it helped other women. Six months later, the force decided to take no further action in her case.
Sullivan was arrested by the same force in 2008 on suspicion of sexual assault following an allegation made by a 25-year-old woman. No charges were brought.
Essex Police recently reviewed a number of cases and determined it had been correct in each one to conclude that there had been insufficient evidence to bring any criminal charges.
In one case, a victim requested a review of the decision to take no action. The police found the original decision to be correct, but a police chief described the failure to search Sullivan's property for "items to support the investigation" as a "missed opportunity".
Essex Police told this investigation "tackling violence against women and girls is a key focus for us and we take allegations of this nature very seriously". The Met Police said it also takes such allegations "extremely seriously" and "any information or evidence provided to police will be assessed and the appropriate enquiries carried out".
The allegations uncovered in this investigation represent a test for England's new football regulator, set up last year, which has powers to investigate current owners if there are concerns about their honesty and integrity.
Sullivan has been the largest single shareholder of West Ham since 2010 and before that co-owned Birmingham City for more than 15 years. Before his resignation on Saturday, he had served as co-chairman of West Ham throughout his time as owner.
The Football Association launched a safeguarding investigation into Sullivan in the last few years. A spokesperson for the FA said it had a "robust safeguarding programme" and took all allegations and concerns "very seriously", but that it was unable to comment on individual cases.
West Ham last year became the first Premier League club to be accredited by the charity White Ribbon UK in recognition of the efforts it was taking as an employer to support ending male violence against women and girls.
Baroness Karren Brady, then vice-chair of West Ham, said following the award that the club was "committed to creating a culture where harmful behaviour is called out".
Last month Brady, who has worked with Sullivan for decades and also appears as Lord Sugar's assistant on BBC One's The Apprentice, stood down from her vice-chair role with five games of the season remaining. West Ham were relegated from the Premier League last month.
West Ham said it has clear and robust safeguarding measures in place and the club is unable to comment or provide details on "any individual safeguarding matter as per standard practice in the industry".
In his resignation statement, Sullivan said that "after a lifetime spent building businesses in the adult industry in which I have met thousands of women, it is sadly inevitable that a small number of improper conduct claims are being made against me".
He described those allegations as "false" and said he was "absolutely not the person the media has decided to paint me as". Sullivan said he planned to sue the BBC.
In a statement, White Ribbon said its accreditation was about organisations "delivering a three-year action plan that works towards improvement" and is "not a statement about, or endorsement of, individuals connected to that organisation".
Additional reporting by Olivia Davies
Source: BBC
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