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.
‘He took away my innocence’
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. (BBC)
