Thursday, 30 June 2022
Buckingham Palace won’t publish probe into claims of Meghan bullying staff / Royal family receives over £100 million as costs soar despite cost of living crisis - full breakdown
EUROPE
Buckingham Palace won’t publish probe into claims of
Meghan bullying staff
By Karla
Adam
June 30,
2022 at 7:20 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/30/meghan-royal-family-bullying-report-conclusion/
LONDON —
Buckingham Palace confirmed that “lessons have been learned” following an
investigation into complaints that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, had bullied
palace staff members, but it has not published the findings nor explained what
those lessons are.
.
Last year,
the palace launched an investigation into bullying claims after an article in
the Times of London claimed that two of her employees had been driven from
their jobs and a third had been undermined.
Lawyers for
Meghan denied the reports, calling it a “calculated smear campaign” and said
that the Times of London was being “used by Buckingham Palace to peddle a
wholly false narrative” about the duchess. The reports appeared in the paper
shortly before Meghan and Prince Harry’s bombshell interview with Oprah
Winfrey.
The palace,
which never backed the claims but said they were serious enough to be
investigated, said in a statement on Thursday that the probe had concluded and
that “recommendations on our policies and procedures have been taken forward.”
The palace said that it would not be publishing the results of the review,
which looked at how the palace handled the complaints — not the specifics of
the allegations themselves.
Buckingham
Palace to investigate whether Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, bullied her staff
During a
Wednesday briefing on annual royal finances, a palace official, speaking on the
condition of anonymity, told reporters that the details would remain confidential
to protect the privacy of those who gave testimony about their experiences.
“Because of
the confidentiality of the discussions we have not communicated the detailed
recommendations,” the official said. “The recommendations have been
incorporated within policies and procedures wherever appropriate, and policies
and procedures have changed.”
The
official added: “I think the objectives have been satisfied because lessons
have been learned.”
Royal
watchers had expected the review might be mentioned in the Sovereign Grant
Report, the annual financial accounts of the monarchy’s spending and income
that was published on Thursday.
According
to the palace official, the investigation into the bullying allegations was
funded privately, not by taxpayers, meaning that it did not have to be included
in the public accounts.
The annual
report showed that British monarch’s official expenditure for 2021-2022 had
been about $124 million, an increase of 17 percent on the previous financial
year.
This amount
exceeded the $105 million in the Sovereign Grant — the pot of public money
provided by the British government to cover the costs of the queen’s household
and upkeep of royal residences. The palace said that the royal finances cost
$1.57 per person in the United Kingdom and that the bulk of its spending went
toward major renovation works at Buckingham Palace. The extra costs, the palace
said, would be met by reserves set aside in previous years.
The
accounts showed that the most expensive trip over the past year was the trip to
the Caribbean in March by Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of
Cambridge — seen as something of a public relations disaster — that cost
$274,000.
William and
Kate, touring the Caribbean to celebrate queen’s jubilee, draw anti-colonial
protests, demands for reparations
Some said
that the costs seemed excessive, especially in the current economic climate
with a cost-of-living crisis that is starting to bite. Inflation in the U.K. is
over 9 percent — the highest rate in 40 years. “£100m for the royals? Reign it
in,” roared the Daily Mirror on its front page.
Michael
Stevens, the queen’s treasurer who is also called the Keeper of the Privy
Purse, said in a statement that royal finances would also probably be tightened
in coming years.
“With the
Sovereign Grant likely to be flat in the next couple of years, inflationary
pressures on operating costs and our ability to grow supplementary income
likely to be constrained in the short term, we will continue to deliver against
our plans and manage these impacts through our own efforts and efficiencies,” he
said.
By Karla
Adam
Karla Adam
is a London correspondent for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post in
2006, she worked as a freelancer in London, writing for several U.S.
publications including the New York Times, Newsweek and People magazine. She is
a former president of the Association of American Correspondents in
London. Twitter
Royal family receives over £100 million as costs
soar despite cost of living crisis - full breakdown
Costs claimed by senior royals such as the Queen,
Prince Charles and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have continued to rise
By Russell
Myers Enda Mullen
08:26, 30
JUN 2022UPDATED08:53, 30 JUN 2022
https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/uk-world-news/royal-family-receives-over-100-24359721
A new
report has revealed that the royal family cost taxpayers £102.4 million last
year. While the country continues to cope with the cost of living crisis the
money received by the the royals rose by 17 per cent (£15 million).
It means
the cash they received exceeded £100 million for the first time. Royal finances
expert Norman Baker described it as “not right”, the Mirror reports.
The bill
was driven up in part by the multi-million-pound renovation of Buckingham
Palace. Spending on the project rose to £63.9 million, up £14.4million on the
previous year.
Renovation
work intensified to prepare the palace for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
The Queen was in another of her official residences yesterday, receiving
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.
The
Sovereign Grant Report shows that last year the royal family’s travel costs
soared from £1.3 million to £4.5 million, as in-person royal visits resumed
following the pandemic.
Royal
finances expert Norman Baker said: “The Government should have a complete
rethink of how taxpayers’ money is allocated to the royal family. We have no
say in how the royals choose to use private jets or helicopters, which are all
paid for out of the public purse, and while ordinary people are struggling it
isn’t right.”
The 10-year
Buckingham Palace renovation project appears to be on target to cost £369
million. Delivering the Sovereign Grant Report, Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir
Michael Stevens, said: “There was a significant increase in work against a hard
deadline to enable Buckingham Palace to be at the centre of the Platinum
Jubilee celebrations. We were pleased to deliver against our plans.”
Spending on
the royals rose by almost £15 million in 2021/22, up more than 17 per cent on
the previous year, the report revealed. Sir Michael said: “The year was not
without operational and financial challenges. Covid meant we had another year
in which access to the royal palaces was restricted for the Royal Collection
Trust, which again affected our ability to help self-finance our work on behalf
of the nation.”
While
ordinary Brits coped with the cost of living crisis costs incurred by senior
royals continued to rise. Prince William and Kate’s trip to the Caribbean cost
£226,000 in flights and accommodation.
Despite
campaigning on environmental issues, Prince Charles still flies between his
royal residences at an average cost of £15,000 a time. The Queen’s royal train
cost £100,000 for just three outings last year, but is now exclusively powered
by “hydro-treated vegetable oil”, royal sources revealed.
As a
non-working royal, like Prince Harry and his wife Megan, Prince Andrew no
longer qualifies for public funding and gets nothing from the Sovereign Grant.
He is now thought to be exclusively funded privately by the Queen.
Caribbean tour
William and
Kate’s controversial visit to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas cost roughly
£226,000. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge came in for heavy criticism during
the tour in March, with critics labelling it a “throwback to Britain’s colonial
past”.
The royal
pair raised eyebrows for travelling in an open top Land Rover driven by a
Jamaican soldier during a military parade, with some people suggesting it
“looked like a scene from The Crown”.
In an
unprecedented statement, William said after the Caribbean visit: “Tours are an
opportunity to reflect. You learn so much. This tour has brought into even
sharper focus questions about the past and the future. In Belize, Jamaica and
the Bahamas, that future is for the people to decide upon.”
Royal train
The Queen
will not give up using the royal train despite just three outings for her and
Prince Charles costing £100,000 The monarch will hold on to her favourite mode
of transport, which she can travel and sleep on when on engagements - despite
it being used so little each year.
Her Majesty
used the royal train last July on a return journey from Windsor to Manchester
to celebrate 60 years of Coronation Street and the 600th Anniversary of
Manchester Cathedral, costing a staggering £42,452. Prince Charles used the
train twice, with a journey over several days between Stonehaven, Newcastle and
Durham and back to Windsor coming in at £42,450.
A royal
aide said: “The Queen has no plans to stop using the royal train which provides
excellent value for money.”
Green fuel
Environmentalist
Charles committed to using “green fuel” for plane journeys where he can,
despite it costing the public purse far more than normal fuel. A source said:
“The prince is aware of the extra cost but the destructive cost to the environment
during a climate emergency is far greater."
Harry and
Meghan are now paying for themselves - the Prince of Wales no longer funds them
after they ditched their royal roles seeking “financial independence”. After they
shed their life as working royals in 2020 they signed £100m worth of deals with
streaming giants Netflix and Spotify.
During the
couple’s interview with Oprah Winfrey in March last year, Harry said “my family
literally cut me off financially” in “the first quarter of 2020”. A source
close to Prince Charles said the Duke and Duchess “should be congratulated on
achieving their goal” in raking in millions from the private sector - despite
using their new found roles to routinely slam the royal family on global
television interviews.
Charles’s
bill for his sons and their families no longer lists the Sussexes in the
accounts.
Charity cash
Changes to
the way the royal charities accept donations have been implemented after Prince
Charles accepted £2.6million in cash from a former prime minister of Qatar. The
Prince of Wales will never again handle large sums in notes to be passed to his
charities, a royal source has stated.
Charles
faced criticism over being presented with one million euros stuffed in a
briefcase while two other cash gifts of more than £1.6million were given in
Fortnum & Mason carrier bags between 2011 and 2015. A report claimed the
heir to the throne personally accepted the donations for his charity The Prince
of Wales’s Charitable Fund from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, above .
A royal
source said Charles acts on advice and such incidents have not happened in the
past five years and will not happen again.
Wednesday, 29 June 2022
Prince Charles will no longer accept large cash donations for charities
.webp)
Prince Charles will no longer accept large cash
donations for charities
Royal source says heir to throne ‘operates on advice’,
after claims sheikh gave him millions in bag and suitcase
Caroline
Davies
Wed 29 Jun
2022 16.00 BST
The Prince
of Wales will no longer accept large cash donations for his charities, a senior
royal source has said, after Charles faced criticism over claims that he
received €3m from a billionaire Qatari sheikh reportedly stuffed in a small suitcase
and Fortnum & Mason carrier bag.
The Sunday
Times reported that Charles personally accepted the donations, which were
passed to the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF) from Sheikh Hamad bin
Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who was the prime minister of Qatar between 2007 and
2013.
The three
donations were said to have been made between 2011 and 2015. Clarence House has
said all correct processes were followed.
A royal
source said that the heir to the throne “operates on advice”. “Situations,
contexts change over the years. I can say with certainty for more than half a
decade with the situation as it has evolved, this has not happened and it would
not happen again … That was then, this is now.”
The Charity
Commission is examining reports to decide whether this is a matter for it to
investigate.
Although
there is no suggestion of any illegality, or that Charles offered anything in
return for the cash, critics have said the allegations show poor judgment on
the part of the heir to the throne.
The
campaign group Republic has demanded full disclosure over the matter , and has
described the events as “shocking”. It has written to the Charity Commission in
connection with the cash donations.
The
Metropolitan police is currently investigating accusations of cash-for-honours
at another of the Prince’s charities, the Prince’s Foundation, over allegations
that a Saudi millionaire was offered help to obtain a knighthood and UK
citizenship in return for generous donations.
The former
Liberal Democrat cabinet minister Norman Baker has called on the Met to take
the cash donation claims into account during its investigation, claiming that
it contradicts previous statements from Clarence House that the prince did not
directly involve himself in fundraising for his charities.
The royal
source said there had been “a lot of reporting about the Prince of Wales
‘accepting’ this money”.
“It was
passed immediately to his charities and it was his charities who decided to
accept the money. That is a decision for them. And they did so, and, as they
have confirmed, it followed all the right processes. The auditors looked at
it,” the source said.
The Charity
Commission has said in a statement: “We are aware of reports about donations
received by the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation. We will review the
information to determine whether there is any role for the commission in this
matter.”
Clarence
House has said: “Charitable donations received from Sheikh Bin Jassim were
passed immediately to one of the prince’s charities, who carried out the
appropriate governance and have assured us that all the correct processes were
followed.”
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Revealed: how Prince Charles pressured ministers to change law to benefit his estate
.webp)
Queen's consent investigations
Prince Charles
Revealed: how Prince Charles pressured ministers to
change law to benefit his estate
Newly discovered documents show government yielded to
heir’s demands amid fears of a constitutional crisis
Queen’s
secret influence on laws revealed in Scottish government memo
Prince
Charles
Photograph: Ben Stansall/PA
Rob Evans,
David Pegg and Severin Carrell
Tue 28 Jun
2022 14.56 BST
Prince
Charles exploited a controversial procedure to compel government ministers to
secretly change a proposed law to benefit his landed estate, according to
documents uncovered by the Guardian.
Official
papers unearthed in the National Archives reveal ministers in John Major’s
government yielded to his demands amid fears that resisting the heir to the
throne could spark a constitutional crisis.
Ministers
backed down to “avoid a major row” with the prince, effectively allowing him to
force the hand of the elected government.
The
disclosure of the documents provides further evidence of how the royal family
has used the secretive procedure known as Queen’s consent to alter legislation
to benefit their private interests.
Under the
procedure, the monarch and her eldest son are given copies of draft laws in
advance so they can examine whether the legislation affects their public powers
or private assets, such as his Duchy of Cornwall estate or the privately owned
estate at Sandringham.
Ministers
must obtain the consent of the Queen and the prince before relevant legislation
can be approved by parliament. This procedure is different than the better
known procedure of royal assent, a formality that makes a bill become law.
A Guardian
investigation has revealed that the Queen’s consent procedure has been used by
the monarch in recent decades to privately lobby for changes. During her reign,
ministers have been required to secure approval from the Queen or her son for
more than 1,000 parliamentary acts before they were implemented.
Buckingham
Palace and the government say Queen’s consent is a “purely formal” part of the
parliamentary process and is granted by the monarch as a matter of course. The
palace has said that “consent is always granted by the monarch where requested
by government” and that “this process does not change the nature of any such
bill”.
But the
newly revealed documents, concerning a leasehold reform act that became law in
1993, provide detailed evidence of Charles applying pressure on elected
ministers to ensure an exemption to prevent his own tenants from having the
right to buy their own homes.
The Windsor
family has used the consent procedure to vet at least four draft acts that have
changed leasehold laws since the 1960s. Under such laws tenants live in
properties for a specific number of years on a lease, instead of owning it
outright. The changes have given tenants across the country the legal power in
certain circumstances to buy their homes from their landlords.
Letters and
internal memos from September and October 1992 show Charles took a “close
personal interest” in Newton St Loe, a small Somerset village that is part of
the £1bn Duchy of Cornwall estate, and insisted his properties there should be
excluded from the proposed bill. His lobbying secured a special exemption for
the village that has to this day left the tenants financially worse off.
The
documents also reveal Charles wrote directly to Major in October 1992 noting
that he would be shortly receiving a request to give his consent to the
leasehold bill, and expressing his “particular concern” about another aspect of
the proposed law – which he feared would permit tenants to buy and redevelop
historic properties without preserving their “special character”.
‘It is
important to avoid a major row with the Prince of Wales’
Charles, as
the heir to the throne, is given a private annual income – currently about £20m
– out of the profits made by the Duchy of Cornwall, a property estate. The
52,000-hectare estate collects rents on properties across 20 counties in
England and Wales. However, in some areas its tenants are barred from buying
their homes. These tenants, whose number is unknown, continue to pay rent to
the duchy – money that in turn is paid to the prince.
Last year,
after a Guardian investigation revealed the Windsors had vetted several
leasehold reform acts, the duchy said in a statement that neither it nor the
prince had had “any involvement in the drafting of legislation that relates to
any part of leasehold reform”, including the question of tenants buying their own
homes.
In
September 1992, lawyers representing the duchy privately told the government
they were concerned about the proposals contained in a new leasehold bill, and
argued the Newton St Loe tenants should be denied the right to buy their homes.
David Landale,
the duchy’s secretary, said the village – one of the duchy’s main holdings –
was “particularly well liked and valued by His Royal Highness because of its
well-balanced mixture of farms and woodland”.
On 30
September a Whitehall official, JE Roberts, warned ministers that “the
difficulty is that the Prince of Wales takes a close personal interest in the
development of this village”, adding that Charles saw “no reason why he should
now relinquish control. It has been made clear to me that if the government
wish to press ahead on this issue, the prince will wish to discuss it at the
highest levels.”
Roberts
stressed: “The Prince of Wales is likely to come back on Newton St Loe.
Ministers will then need to decide whether it is worth fighting him on the
issue.”
Sir George
Young, the housing minister at the time, and another minister, Tony Baldry,
believed it was not justified to prevent the Newton St Loe tenants from buying
their homes when others in the country had that right, according to a letter.
It was feared it would create a precedent for other major landowners.
In a memo
on 9 October, Roberts noted: “No special case can be made beyond the fact that
the prince has taken a special interest.” He cautioned that ministers’ most
important objective was to “ensure that the consent of the Queen and the Prince
of Wales to the bill is obtained … their consent is necessary before the bill
may be introduced.”
“Ultimately
I assume that the will of ministers can prevail over that of monarchy but a
constitutional crisis would add a further dimension of controversy to the bill
which would be better avoided,” he wrote.
Roberts
warned the ministers faced a choice between either conceding to the prince or
staying firm and “looking for a mechanism to break the deadlock. Unfortunately
I am not aware that our constitution has provided any such mechanism!”
On 22
October, Roberts advised: “On the basis that it is important to avoid a major
row with the Prince of Wales … there is a case for letting matters rest … It is
open to the minister to fight if he wishes, recognising that this is likely to
have costs on both sides.”
However,
Baldry replied: “We have probably got as far as we can with this … we should
let the matter rest.” Young agreed: “I could live with this – reluctantly.” On
the same day, the prince gave his consent to the bill.
The special
exemption barring the Newton St Loe tenants from buying their homes was made
public only during the enactment of a later leasehold act in 2002.
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A duchy spokesperson
said: “The Duchy of Cornwall estate is exempt from leasehold reform legislation
but has agreed to act as if bound in, apart from in a very small number of
specifically identified areas including Newton St Loe. As you can imagine, we
do not discuss individual leaseholds.”
In
practical terms only a small number of Newton St Loe tenants are affected by
the ban. But they say they have suffered bitter financial hardship as a result
of the prince’s special rights. One, Jane Giddins, said she and her husband
cannot borrow against their home to pay for social care for themselves in the
future. She added that the value of the 99-year-old lease on their home – their
main asset – diminished steadily as it got closer to ending.
“It is
total injustice, and feudal,” Giddins said. “Because my freehold is owned by
someone who is immensely wealthy and powerful, I am not protected by the law
that applies to everyone else in this country. I can’t do anything about it.”
She said
that when she and her husband took the lease in 1996, the duchy told them about
the ban on buying it – but she could not have known that the prince had lobbied
to keep the village exempt from leasehold reform.
“I took the
view that it was so obviously anachronistic and grossly unfair, that by the
time I needed to sort it out, the law would have been changed. And I had no
idea that the duchy would be able to stop the law being tidied up.”
Monday, 27 June 2022
Prince Charles In Major Controversy After 'Accepting a Suitcase With 1M Euros', Report Claims | GMB / Prince Charles: calls for investigations into ‘cash in bags’ controversy
Prince Charles: calls for investigations into ‘cash in
bags’ controversy
Government and Charity Commission urged to examine
claims Qatari sheikh donated €3m
Caroline
Davies
Sun 26 Jun
2022 17.16 BST
Prince
Charles faced fresh controversy over the funding of his charities on Sunday,
with calls for the government and the Charity Commission to investigate claims
he accepted €3m in cash from a billionaire Qatari sheikh.
Claims in
the Sunday Times that Charles accepted three donations between 2011 and 2015
from former Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani –
known as “HBJ” – were described as “shocking” by critics. One donation,
totalling €1m, was reportedly handed over in a small suitcase and another was
stuffed in a carrier bag from upmarket department store Fortnum & Mason.
The cash,
allegedly then counted by Charles’s aides and subsequently collected by Coutts
bank, was paid to the Prince of Wales’s charitable fund which aims to
“transform lives and build sustainable communities” through awarding grants.
The fund told the Sunday Times that its trustees had concluded that the donor
was legitimate and its auditors had signed off on the donation.
Although
there is no suggestion of any illegality, or that Charles offered anything in
return for the generous donations, critics said it raised serious concerns
about the future king’s personal judgment, especially given Qatar’s record on
human rights.
One
described it as more like the actions of a “South American drug baron” than a
future king, while another said the image of Charles’s aides counting out the
cash was like a scene from TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses.
Clarence
House said in a statement: “Charitable donations received from Sheikh bin
Jassim were passed immediately to one of the prince’s charities, who carried
out the appropriate governance and have assured us that all the correct
processes were followed.”
The royal
family’s guidelines make no mention of cash donations, but do say that at their
sole discretion members of the royal family are allowed to accept a cheque as a
patron of, or on behalf of, a charity with which they are associated.
The
campaign group Republic today demanded full disclosure from Charles over this
latest controversy and said it would be writing to Prince Charles, the
government, MPs and the Charity Commission. Graham Smith of Republic said the
claims were “shocking” and raised ethical questions.
.webp)
“Prince
Charles met Sheikh Hamad in private, with no officials present and with no
disclosure of the meeting in the court circular,” said Smith. “Sheikh Hamad
faces serious accusations over human rights and has significant financial and
other interests here in the UK.”
Norman
Baker, a former government minister and Liberal Democrat MP, who has written a
book on royal finances, said: “A million dollars in cash stuffed into Fortnum
and Mason bags, or shoved into a holdall or a suitcase, and handed over behind
closed doors. This is what one might expect from a South American drug baron,
not the heir to the British throne. It seems there are no lengths Charles will
not go to get money for his good causes.”
Last year,
Charles’s closest aide Michael Fawcett was forced to resign after donations to
another of his charities, the Prince’s Foundation, came under scrutiny after
allegations it offered to help a wealthy Saudi donor secure a knighthood and
British citizenship. The Metropolitan police said earlier this year it is
investigating the honours claim under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act
1925, after complaints from Baker and others. Clarence House has said Charles
had no knowledge of the alleged offers to the billionaire businessman Mahfouz
Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, who denies any wrongdoing.
Of these
latests claims, Baker said: “[Charles] is already involved in a police
investigation as a result of my complaint to the Metropolitan police last year.
This is grubby, scuzzy behaviour which reinforces the view many are reaching:
that Charles is not fit to be king.
“He doesn’t
behave in any way which is appropriate to his position. If an MP behaved in
that way they would be out of parliament.”
The Northern
Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, said the donations the Prince of Wales is
alleged to have received from the former prime minister of Qatar would have
gone through “proper due process”.
“This isn’t
a government issue, but what I have seen is the palace have been very clear,
that all moneys go through proper due process, the charities obviously go
through proper due process,” Lewis told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme.
“I’m
confident having had some dealings with charities, the Prince’s Trust, the Prince’s
Foundation, around the palace in the past myself that these will have gone
through proper due process.”
But the
royal author and Prince Charles critic Tom Bower, said the claim that royal
aides were asked to handle carrier bags stuffed with money was “like a scene
from the TV comedy Only Fools and Horses.”
Coutts
declined to discuss specific transactions, but a spokesperson told the Mail on
Sunday: “We have longstanding and robust policies and controls to assess the
source, nature and purpose of large and unusual transactions. In particular,
receipt of cash payments by the bank receive thorough review and oversight.”
Sunday, 26 June 2022
Lucy Worsley Investigates - Preview
REVIEW
Lucy Worsley has to hold back tears as she gets
serious about the witch hunts
4/5
In her new series, Lucy Worsley Investigates, the
historian has ditched the twinkle for sober research - and it suits her
By
Jasper Rees
24 May 2022
• 10:00pm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/lucy-worsley-has-hold-back-tears-gets-serious-witch-hunts/
In the
1990s Britain’s witches started to enjoy a better press thanks to JK Rowling.
Four centuries earlier, not far from the very Edinburgh cafe in which she
scratched out the early adventures of Hermione Granger and the boy wizards in
her gang, witches were in less good odour. As grippingly related in The Witch
Hunts: Lucy Worsley Investigates (BBC Two), the state-sponsored hounding of
blameless women began in Edinburgh in the 1590s with the execution of Agnes
Sampson.
Carefully lacing
the facts together from books, documents and sessions with fellow historians,
Worsley wandered into a horror story. Poor Agnes, she revealed, was a midwife
and healer in a village in East Lothian who found herself snared in the
cross-hairs of history.
John Knox’s
Presbyterians had jostled to prominence just as the Little Ice Age and a
growing population made food scarcer. To propitiate the Almighty someone needed
blaming and folk healers, newly suspected of being in league with the Devil,
fitted the bill. Most of them were women.
Then in
1590 the heirless James VI’s ship, bringing home his Danish bride, nearly sank
in a storm in the Firth of Forth. Agnes was summoned before the king to
Holyrood and had a confession of conjuring up the storm tortured out of her. As
they hunted for marks of the Devil “found upon her privities”, she admitted to
a fictitious 200-strong coven before being executed by strangling.
Fun times
these were not, though perhaps they were not so unlike our own. Imagine the
fanatics of Isis teaming up with the disinformers of Russian state TV: that was
the Scotland of James VI, who, as James I, would shortly export this misogynist
ideology to England.
This new
series, casting Worsley as an inky-fingered sleuth shedding new light on well-worn
episodes in British history, could run and run. Previously I have been
resistant to her immersive style – the mob caps and the mummery would trigger
my inner harrumpher.
Her
director still fetishises her shoewear with close-ups of clacking Marplesque
heels, but there’s now less artful twinkling and more impassioned sincerity.
Here you could watch Worsley reacting in real time to unscripted discoveries.
When she found a document quoting Agnes more or less verbatim, she distinctly
paused to hold back a tear.
This was
sober, research-based storytelling, with field trips to overgrown ruins and
museum storerooms. The only glimmer of impish wit was in Forfar, where the
camera spotted a black cat on the prowl.
Worsley’s
true co-stars were the documents she disinterred. However, it was only if you
paused on the relevant frame could you read the vilification of blameless women
at its most pornographic: “It has latelye beene found that the Divell dooth
generallye marke them with a privie marke, by reason the Witches have confessed
themselves, that the Divell dooth lick them with his tung in some privy part of
their bodie, before hee dooth receive them to be his servants.” Worsley
left that bit out. As did Rowling.
1. Princes
in the Tower
Air date:
May 15, 2022
Lucy
Worsley investigates what really happened to the two princes who disappeared in
1483.
2. Madness
of King George
Air date:
May 22, 2022
A close
look at the life of George III, including the effect of his mental illness on
Britain and how the assassination attempt on his life changed psychiatry.
3. The
Black Death
Air date:
May 24, 2022
Lucy
Worsley reinvestigates and reveals new evidence about some of British history's
biggest unsolved mysteries.
4. The
Witch Hunts
Air date:
May 24, 2022
Lucy
Worsley reinvestigates and reveals new evidence about some of British history's
biggest unsolved mysteries.
Saturday, 25 June 2022
Scouting for Girls: Fashion's Darkest Secret | Sky Documentaries
Scouting for Girls: Fashion’s Darkest Secret review –
terrible tales of sexual abuse in the modelling industry
Grooming, conditioning, coercive control: nowadays we
have words for fashion’s horrific treatment of young women in bygone decades.
This sober expose puts the atrocities in the spotlight
Lucy Mangan
@LucyMangan
Fri 24 Jun
2022 22.00 BST
There’s a
scene in the 1990 movie Awakenings, about Dr Oliver Sacks’ investigations into
the epidemic of sleeping sickness in which Robin Williams – who plays a
character based on Sacks – muses on the evidence. “You’d think,” he says, “at a
certain point all these atypical somethings would amount to a typical
something.”
I hear some
version of that in my mind every time I see another documentary about predatory
men and their abuse of (almost invariably) women and children, hidden in plain
sight as they go about their life-wrecking business with impunity, often for
decades. Michael Jackson, R Kelly, Jimmy Savile, various rock legends, Jeffrey
Epstein and Harvey Weinstein are among the most recent, but the list could go
on and will undoubtedly be added to in the future.
The latest
entrant in the increasingly crowded field is Scouting for Girls: Fashion’s
Darkest Secret (Sky Documentaries). This three-part documentary (made by
Wonderhood Studios and the Guardian, building on the investigation by Lucy
Osborne) reveals the endemic sexual abuse of the girls – and when we are
talking about 13, 14, 15-year-olds there is no other word – and young women
embarking on modelling careers by those supposedly in charge of their welfare.
It centres
on four agents in particular; John Casablancas, Gérald Marie, Jean-Luc Brunel
and Claude Haddad who essentially controlled the modelling industry in the 80s
and 90s – its most glamorous public era, the heyday of the supermodel. The
promise, the allure for young women around the world was intoxicating. The
reality was very different. Gérald Marie is the only one of the four still
alive, and he categorically denies all the allegations.
Scouting
keeps to the format and grammar we have come to expect from such exposés.
Victims of predators’ historical abuses tell their stories. Here, former models
Carré Otis, Shawna Lee, Jill Dodd and others testify to their experiences at
the hands of these men (those of whom are still alive deny the allegations).
The women tell essentially the same stories, which are as old as time itself.
Lonely and isolated in foreign countries, desperate for work, dependent on the
agencies for contacts, shelter and money, they are grateful when the boss takes
an interest. A kindly chat, a shoulder to cry on, a bit of support given
evolves gently into a suggestion to stay over in an apartment late at night.
And then comes the flip. “Suddenly he was on top of me” is a common refrain.
The word “devastated” recurs often. The men rape and then fall asleep as the
children/women lie crying silently or numbly terrified beside them until the
dawn.
Dodd also
remembers finding out that it was common practice for agencies to “introduce”
models to rich men – who chose them from books – for vast fees. Nowadays, we
have a term for that: human trafficking. We also have words like “grooming”,
“conditioning”, “coercive control” and so on, to name other experiences, though
it is hard to tell how much safer this makes the vulnerable in a world where
rape convictions are so low as to be effectively nonexistent.
At the
time, Carré et al thought these terrible things had happened only to them and
that they had brought them on themselves. The failure of exposés by CBS (on 60
Minutes in 1988) and the BBC (by Donal MacIntyre in 1999) to bring about a
reckoning did nothing to help them come to terms with their experiences.
Osborne’s
investigation helped bring scattered victims together. They are now mustering
in numbers and helping with a criminal investigation in France that they hope
will see at least Marie brought to justice.
It is hard
to see things ever changing – or certainly not as soon or as radically
required. This is a sober account of yet another industry’s failings. What
a terrible world.
.webp)
‘I woke up and he was on top of me’: six women on
being abused by fashion agent Jean-Luc Brunel
The Frenchman killed himself in prison in February
while awaiting trial for rape. Here, six former models speak out about him, his
friend Jeffrey Epstein – and an industry that seemed to turn a blind eye
A special
investigation
by Lucy
Osborne
Sat 28 May
2022 09.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2022/may/28/jean-luc-brunel-abuse-six-women-epstein
In the
autumn of 1985, 22-year-old Marianne Shine was invited to Paris to try her hand
at modelling. A confident and academic young woman, she had graduated in
classical art and archaeology from her college in Pennsylvania, having spent
several summers in Greece on archaeological digs, and was excited to visit
Europe again. Her Danish mother, a travel agent, and Hungarian father, a
gynaecologist, encouraged her to go, convinced that the modelling agents there
would take good care of her.
But after
six months of modelling in Paris, Shine returned home a different person.
“Before Paris I was this playful, creative girl, but that part of me vanished,”
she tells me now. Her mother found her a job at a travel agency in their suburb
of New York, but Shine wasn’t interested. She says: “It was like this
deadening. I couldn’t fall asleep at night, and then I couldn’t wake up in the
morning. I could barely trudge through the day.”
What Shine
knows now but didn’t have the words for at the time is that she was
experiencing a “deep, deep depression”. In Paris she had been sexually
assaulted multiple times by men in the fashion industry. This culminated in
being raped by her agent, Jean-Luc Brunel, then one of the most powerful men in
the business, and the person entrusted with her care.
“I didn’t
understand how deeply it affected me and I blamed myself,” says Shine, now 58,
from her home in Mill Valley, California. “I felt like this dirty, vile,
horrible thing.” She didn’t tell anyone, not even the therapist her mother
arranged for her to see. “I just kept burying it,” she says. “I was so alone in
that darkness.”
Three
decades later, as #MeToo reverberated around the world, Shine opened up to
close friends and relatives, but rarely went into details. In October 2020,
though, she read the Guardian’s investigations into abuse in the fashion
industry, drawing on accounts from former models who had had similar
experiences in Paris in the 80s and 90s, including some with allegations
against her alleged rapist, Brunel. “I thought: how many other women out there,
like me, had buried it?”
Two months
later, Brunel was arrested on suspicion of trafficking and raping underage
girls. The investigation was being led by police investigating the paedophile
Jeffrey Epstein. It emerged that the pair had been close associates, and that
Brunel was accused of supplying more than 1,000 girls and young women for
Epstein to have sex with. “That blew my mind,” Shine says. “I had no idea what
I had been a part of.”
Shine is
speaking now for the first time, and has contributed to a three-part Sky
documentary to be broadcast next month. The series was developed from my
Guardian investigations into sexual abuse in the fashion industry, and follows
former models and whistleblowers. In the final episode, Shine is filmed
recounting her experiences over the phone to a lawyer in France as a witness in
the growing criminal case against Brunel.
On 19
February this year, though, as justice seemed within reach, news broke that
Brunel had killed himself in prison – mirroring the fate of Epstein. The
75-year-old had spent 14 months in custody, awaiting trial on charges of rape
of minors and sexual harassment, which he denied, along with any participation
in Epstein’s sex-trafficking. Shine says she felt “this whole rollercoaster of
emotions. I had buried it for so many years and then to have it just go ‘pfft –
not possible’ … it was crushing.”
What I saw was horrific. These poor girls were just
kids, and it was like a Renaissance painting: underwear, nudity, cocaine …
definitely sex going on
For Shine
and the five other Brunel accusers who spoke to me for this story – four of
whom are sharing their experiences for the first time – his death has been a
trigger to speak out. All say their careers were affected by what they allege
took place in Paris. They say Brunel was at the heart of a network of sexual
abuse in the industry that still needs to be exposed. There were others around
him, they claim, who enabled the abuse and continued to put models in danger,
even after allegations against Brunel were aired on US TV in the late 80s. Some
of these people continue to work in the industry today.
Shine says:
“I don’t have to wait for a courtroom to tell me whether I’m right or wrong. I
know my truth. If I don’t give voice to this, it’s going to continue to
happen.”
Born into
an upper-middle-class family in Paris in 1946, Brunel started his career in
restaurant PR before moving into fashion. He rose to prominence as a model
scout in the late 1970s, and became the head of Karin Models in Paris in 1978;
claiming to have launched the careers of some of the most successful
supermodels of the era, including Helena Christensen.
By the 80s,
Brunel was one of the leading model agents in Paris and a fixture on the social
scene, particularly at the exclusive Les Bains Douches nightclub, where he had
his own table. He surrounded himself with VIPs, from businessmen and princes to
pop stars and movie producers – and, of course, scores of young models. Nights
of dancing were preceded by dinners at his apartment near the Karin
headquarters on the elegant Avenue Hoche, or followed by parties there. He’d
always select a handful of his favourite models to keep him and his male
friends company. Brunel was said to provide bowls of cocaine and encourage his
guests, models included, to indulge.
A
succession of young women who worked for Karin lived in his apartment – often
sharing bedrooms. In 1982, Scottish model Lynn Wales was one of them. She describes
witnessing one party at his home, which became “more like an orgy”. Brunel’s
apartment, she says, “was on one of the big avenues near the Arc de Triomphe.
He had a maid and a cook. It was all so foreign to me.” Speaking on the phone
from her home in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, she says: “I was like the
weirdo in those days, I didn’t drink or smoke. I was sewing a patchwork quilt …
they thought I was from Mars.”
One night
at Brunel’s apartment, Wales says, he told her to answer his phone. “It was an
American mother worried about her 14-year-old daughter who was coming to
Paris,” she says. Shortly afterwards, this girl and several others from the US
arrived. Wales says she heard Brunel tell the young women he would get them
lucrative jobs, including a Benetton campaign and several pages in Vogue. Soon,
they joined Brunel’s party, which she says was “filled with old, fat men”.
“My room
was down the hall from the salon, which was where it was going on … and what I
saw that night was horrific,” says Wales, who was 17 at the time. “These poor
girls were just kids, and there were piles of cocaine. It was like a
Renaissance painting: underwear, nudity, cocaine … definitely sex going on.”
Wales, now in her 50s, adds: “I just went into my room. I was shocked at what I
saw and I suppose a bit scared.” The next day, she says, she confronted Brunel
and they had “a big fight”. Soon afterwards, she left the agency and returned
to London, disheartened.
Four decades
later, on 20 December 2020, after learning of Brunel’s arrest, Wales, who runs
a cleaning business in Glasgow, reported what she had witnessed to Cumbernauld
police station. “I’m from a wee village in Scotland … they must have thought I
was mad,” she says.
In the
1980s, many of those trying to make it at agencies in Paris were teenagers from
the US, Canada or elsewhere in Europe. Most were away from home for the first
time. For Marianne Shine, it was less a long‑term career move and more a way to make some money and travel before
returning to her studies. She was comfortable in front of the camera and spoke
a bit of French. “I thought I had it together: I have a college degree and I’ve
travelled, and my parents are European,” she says.
However, in
January 1986, within weeks of arriving in Paris to work for Prestige – a French
agency run by Claude Haddad, one of Brunel’s biggest rivals – she was beginning
to feel out of her depth. Haddad was another power player, who had discovered
Jerry Hall and Grace Jones. His staff were sending Shine all over Paris for
castings, but she had limited success. She began witnessing her boss’s
predatory behaviour towards young models and was disgusted when one day the
same thing happened to her. Haddad (who died in 2009) called her into his
office in front of clients and other agency staff and sexually assaulted her,
she says. He pulled her shirt down to show her breasts, “hoisted up my skirt,
smacked me on the arse and spun me around,” she says. Shine couldn’t believe
that no one did anything to stop it. She left Prestige shortly afterwards to
find another agency – somewhere she’d feel safer.
When Shine
found herself at Karin’s sunny office near the Champs-Élysées, it felt full of
promise. Getting in felt to her “like joining an exclusive club”. When she
first met Brunel, he told her she wasn’t allowed in until she slimmed down.
“He’d say, ‘You need to lose more weight in your face, come back next week,’”
says Shine. After several weeks of extreme dieting, she stopped getting her
period and began to lose hope that she would make the cut. But one day Brunel
finally told her she was ready.
Being a
model with Karin’s gave us this privilege. Where there was a velvet rope and
people queueing, they would just let us in. It felt so cool, like we were
celebrities
That night
Brunel whisked her off to a Sade concert in a limousine. “I was so excited,”
she says. There were other models in the car, but Shine was alone with Brunel
in the back seat and “he was sort of interviewing me,” she says. After that,
Shine started getting bookings. “Being a model with Karin’s gave us this
privilege,” she says. “Where there would be the velvet rope and people queueing
up outside, they would just let us in. It felt so cool, like we were
celebrities.”
In the
spring of 1986, she was invited to a dinner at Brunel’s house: “He had a very
nice flat, very fancy.” Several top models from the agency were there, as well
as a number of men, including one Shine now believes was Harvey Weinstein. She
was keeping an eye on the time, conscious of when the Métro would stop running,
but says Brunel kept insisting: “No, no, no – don’t leave yet. We’re just
having fun. I’ll have someone give you a ride home.”
When the
time came to leave, there was no one to take her home. The other models
suggested she stay at the apartment, reassuring her that they slept over all
the time, but she wasn’t sure. “Everybody went to bed and Jean-Luc and I sat
there, and he was like: ‘Yes, I really have hopes for you.’ I felt privileged.
He went: ‘How about I bring you a pillow and a blanket and you sleep here?’”
Shine reluctantly agreed. Brunel went to his room and she fell asleep on the
couch, but Brunel soon woke her up. “He was wearing a silk robe, he was
kneeling next to me, and he was like: ‘Go sleep in my bed.’ He kept repeating
that I needed my beauty rest.” Shine repeatedly said no, and he went away.
Eventually, she remembers: “He was standing over me and was insistent, almost
angry, and he went: ‘Go to my bed, I’ll sleep out here, you go now.’ I stupidly
went into his bedroom, into this big bed with these satin sheets.
“Somehow I
managed to fall asleep again, and I woke up and he was on top of me,” says
Shine. “He was naked and he was thrusting between my legs … ” Shine says he was
able to penetrate her through her underwear before she was able to push him
off. This, she says, made him angry. “He took my head and tried to make me go
down on him.” She was able to resist, but Brunel took her hand and placed it on
his penis. “He passed out and then rolled over and slept,” she says. “I was
petrified.” As soon as Shine heard his breathing change, she sneaked out. “I
was in full-blown survival mode, like: get the fuck away,” she says.
Shine feels
most angry about what happened at the agency the following Monday. “I showed
up, and my booker was there and she was like: ‘I can’t be seen talking to you …
you have to go.’” Shine says she went charging into Brunel’s office. He was on
the phone, and repeatedly shouted for her to get out. Shine recalls Brunel
saying: “I’m going to call the police on you. You don’t work here any more,”
before pushing her out.
“I couldn’t
understand it. I was the one who’d been raped.” Reflecting on the incident, she
says tearfully: “I really believed him when he said that stuff to me. I don’t
think I’m stupid. I think I’m quite intelligent, but a part of me wanted to
believe him. Looking back, I think Jean-Luc was grooming me, and if I was
someone who would play along with his fantasies, then he’d help me work. And if
I was not going to be a player, then he would make sure that I disappeared.”
Shine
returned to live with her mother in Bronxville, New York. During the previous
six months, she had been repeatedly subjected to sexual harassment and assault,
including an attempted rape by a fashion designer who told her that sex was “what
models are for”. She says: “I didn’t tell my parents … or anyone.” It became
clear that the events in Paris had spelled the end of her modelling career. Her
diary at the time reveals a woman battling with her mental health. Her first
entry after the Brunel incident, on 12 June 1986, reads: “I hate myself, I just
keep crying … I think I’m going insane … this pain of misery is too great to be
tolerated any more. I will do something drastic.” She says now that she was
suicidal. “I feel so sorry for that young woman that was me.”
I didn’t
realise how bad it was. There was this pattern through the entire industry. It
wasn’t just me
Two years
later, in December 1988, CBS released a 60 Minutes investigation into abuse in
the fashion industry, presented by Diane Sawyer. Titled American Girls in
Paris, it revealed allegations against both Haddad and Brunel. Shine and her
mother watched from their couch as Sawyer asked Haddad if he had slept with any
of his teenage models. He responded: “Almost never.” Brunel declined an
interview, but Sawyer talked to several of his accusers, including a woman who
spoke anonymously to say he had drugged and raped her. “Boy, did that hit close
to home,” says Shine. “I didn’t realise how bad it was. There was this pattern
through the entire industry. It wasn’t just me.” She confided in her then
boyfriend about what she alleges happened with Brunel, and he has confirmed her
account to me. However, she still couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother. “I
still felt too much shame,” she says.
After a
brief flurry of controversy, the CBS programme was the subject of an
undisclosed legal threat. A spokesperson for the TV company said recently that
the programme is “still on legal hold”, meaning the recording or even a
transcript cannot be shared. Brunel’s career continued to thrive.
The
following year, in 1989, Brunel had a hand in creating another agency, Next
Management, based in New York, which is still running today. Craig Pyes, who
produced the CBS film, says: “We accused somebody of drugging and raping people
in front of 8 million people, and then they can come to the US, open a
modelling agency and bring in more underage girls? What happened?”
A
spokesperson for Next Management says of the allegations against Brunel: “None
of that happened in our orbit. When we started Next in 1989 we had no idea
about any of that – zero. It was a very short-lived relationship. He left after
a year and a half and neither of the partners ever ran into him again.”
In 1995,
Brunel expanded Karin into the US. Joey Hunter, a veteran American agent,
agreed to go into business with him in New York. “It was the biggest mistake of
my life,” says Hunter, who sold his stake and quit after two years, sick of
Brunel. Brunel also continued in a senior role at Karin in Paris through the
90s, but stopped working for the Europe division by the end of the decade.
Karin continues to be a leading agency in Paris today, but declined to comment
for this article.
‘He wanted to control me completely’: the models who
accuse Gérald Marie of sexual assault
In a 1995
interview with journalist Michael Gross, who was writing a book on the
modelling industry, Brunel claimed there were other French agents whose
behaviour was worse than his, including Haddad and Gérald Marie – at the time
the European boss of the leading modelling agency Elite – who was previously
married to supermodel Linda Evangelista. Marie was one of Brunel’s rivals, but
the pair reportedly “exchanged” models between their businesses and frequented
the same parties and clubs in Paris. Brunel told Gross on a tape that will be
heard for the first time in the new documentary: “[There are] a lot of other ones
that you don’t see, that you don’t hear … Gérald is 100 times worse than I am.”
Marie has categorically denied all accusations against him.
Pyes says
the alleged behaviour of Brunel, Haddad and Marie (who wasn’t referenced in the
CBS programme) was an “open secret” three decades ago. He believes it was able
to continue because the industry chose to look the other way. “These were
normal girls from all over America and no one cared,” he says. “We’re talking
about a conveyor belt, not a casting couch. What I want to know is, who else
was involved who helped move this along?”
One of the
young women Pyes interviewed for the CBS programme was Courtney Soerensen. Then
19, she told film-makers that turning down Brunel’s repeated sexual advances
meant her work dried up. Now she says that what really happened in Paris went
much further.
From her
home in Livermore, California, Soerensen tells me that not only was she
repeatedly sexually assaulted by Brunel in the spring of 1988, but she was also
“pimped out” to his friends in an orchestrated system of abuse. She tells me
this culminated in a meeting with a man Brunel referred to simply as “Jeffy”,
supposedly a top movie agent looking for a new young actress. Soerensen, now
53, says it was only recently, after recognising him in TV footage, that she
realised this was Jeffrey Epstein.
Soerensen,
who began modelling in her home town of Stoneboro, aged 13, describes her
teenage self as “your all-round American girl from a small rural Pennsylvania
town”. She played in the school band and sang in the church choir. She and her
younger brother were raised by their single mother, a teacher. Her mother
insisted she attend college at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, but Soerensen
left three months before completing her degree in fashion merchandising to
become a model with the agency IMG. A few months later, she says: “I was sent
to Paris to fill out my book, get polished and then come back to take New York
by storm.”
From the
moment she arrived at the apartment she was to share with other models,
“everything was highly personalised and very hands-on with Brunel”, she says.
“It was all super-glamorous … I got to go to George Michael’s concert and sit
and eat dinner with him and Brunel afterwards … all sorts of crazy, beautiful
things.” Soon after, Brunel began pestering her for sex and subjecting her to
unwanted touching, grabbing her breasts, putting his hand up her dress and
rubbing himself against her. On one occasion, she says, he lured her into his
bedroom on the pretext of showing her photos of a Miss Universe contestant
whose career he’d developed. “He got handsy, then pushed me down on the bed and
jumped on top of me,” she says. Soerensen was able to escape Brunel’s advances
because she was much bigger than him: “I was quite thin at the time, but I’m
6ft tall and I was raised on a farm and as an athlete.”
Soerensen
says Brunel told her she would be rewarded if she went along with his requests.
“He said if I was good enough at these sexual things, he could send me to
people who could really help build my career.” But Brunel soon “seemed to
understand I had no interest in him and proceeded to set me up on
‘appointments’ with his cronies”. From that point, she says, “there was always
this expectation that we’d be available to whoever of his playboy friends were
there”. She was sometimes paired up with these men by the female bookers at
Karin, who she says “would schedule lunches with them”. Brunel also began
punishing her, she says. She had grown a “luxurious mane of hair” and one day
Brunel sent her to a hairstylist who “chopped it all off, and turned it bright
orange”.
The last
straw was the so-called “casting call” with Epstein. She says Brunel told her
it was for a role in a Hollywood movie, and that “Jeffy” was looking for
someone “young, fresh and raw”, who could also bring some maturity to the part.
“I was so excited to be picked,” she says. Epstein is not known to have had any
genuine connections to Hollywood, but is accused by others of assuming false
identities in order to gain access to young models.
The
appointment at 6pm on 3 May 1988 was at an apartment just off the
Champs-Élysées. Epstein, who was joined by a videographer, told her: “First I
need to see that you’re a good kisser and that you’re passionate. This is going
to be a movie with a lot of love scenes, romance, so we want to make sure that
you have the right body and show us what you’re capable of.” Soerensen
expressed her discomfort, telling him she would prefer to do this with an actor
and not with him, but went along with it. She says he then suggested moving to
the kitchen to film a different “scene”. Epstein told her: “I’ll come up and
start kissing you from behind, and then we’ll make out on the floor.” Soerensen
says it was when he put his hands on her breasts and up her skirt that she
broke away and told him it wasn’t appropriate. She remembers he then tried to
hug her and began touching himself. “That’s when I just had to get
out of there,” she says. “I remember shaking … the shame and the fury.”
In the days
that followed, she made a tearful call to her US agency, IMG Models, begging to
come home. Soerensen told her female agent that Brunel was sabotaging her
career because she wouldn’t sleep with him and that she was no longer able to
make ends meet. She couldn’t bring herself to tell them what happened with
Epstein, she says. “I was horrified that they had video of him touching me in
that way.” The agency arranged for her to be spirited out of Brunel’s home in
the middle of the night by people from another French agency, and she hid for a
few days in another apartment. Soon afterwards, she flew home to Stoneboro.
Soerensen
says she was staggered to discover that IMG continued sending young models to
Brunel in Paris after that. She says this is why she feels it’s important she
speaks out now, “because too many people are complicit”. IMG declined to
comment for this article.
She says
that what happened with Epstein and Brunel “was something I buried pretty
deep”. It wasn’t until she saw footage of Epstein as a young man in the 2020
Netflix documentary Filthy Rich that she realised who the supposed film agent
had been. “It was the way that he would tap his fingers,” she says. “He would
put his arm around you and do that tapping, and to this day I can’t stand for
anyone to touch or tap me like that.” Since then, Soerensen has spent a lot of
time in therapy.
Brunel and
Epstein are thought to have met for the first time in the 1980s through the
British socialite and now convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, but their
relationship seems to have deepened in the late 1990s. According to flight
logs, between 2000 and 2005 Brunel took at least two dozen trips on Epstein’s
private jet – the so-called “Lolita Express”. Only a handful of people,
including Maxwell, appear more often. In 2005, Brunel transformed Karin’s US
division into a new agency called MC2, with financial help from Epstein,
opening offices in New York and Miami. Epstein and MC2 denied they had any
business relationship, but in a sworn statement in 2010, MC2’s former
bookkeeper, Maritza Vasquez, said Epstein had guaranteed a $1m line of credit
for the company and directly paid for the visas of models brought to the US to
work for it.
Vasquez
said Brunel and models as young as 13 lived in apartments controlled by Epstein
on East 66th Street in Manhattan. Epstein didn’t charge rent, but Brunel billed
the models $1,000 a month, Vasquez said. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of
Epstein’s accusers, alleged in a 2014 court filing that the system was a cover
for sex trafficking. Brunel “would offer the girls ‘modelling’ jobs”, the
document read. “Many of the girls came from poor countries or impoverished
backgrounds, and he lured them in with a promise of making good money.” Roberts
Giuffre also alleges that she herself was made by Epstein to have sex with
Brunel.
In 2006,
the authorities caught up with Epstein and arrested him in Florida. He spent
just 13 months in a Florida jail after pleading guilty to procuring an underage
girl for prostitution. Brunel visited Epstein in jail no fewer than 67 times.
Brunel
continued to operate MC2 in Miami until 2019. He led MC2 in New York until
2017, when he is reported to have sold the assets to help create two new
boutique agencies, which are still running. Both deny any connection to Brunel.
In 1991,
three years after the 60 Minutes exposé, Dutch model Thysia Huisman arrived in
Paris, aged 18. An only child whose mother had died when she was five, she had
been scouted in a Belgian club by a model agency in Brussels run by a female
friend of Brunel’s. Brunel invited her to work for him at Karin and live at his
Paris apartment. Huisman hadn’t heard about the CBS programme or its
allegations, but nonetheless felt uneasy. However, the agent from Brussels told
her that only “special girls he saw potential in” were given this opportunity,
and that Brunel would take care of her.
One evening
in September 1991, having already attended a number of Brunel’s dinners and
parties, she accepted a drink that Brunel mixed for her. She describes feeling
“paralysed”. In a previous Guardian interview, she said: “I felt him – this is
difficult – between my legs. Pushing.” Huisman said the rest was a blur. She
woke the next morning in a kimono that wasn’t hers, with soreness on her inner
thighs. She gathered her things and fled. Her modelling work never recovered
and she embarked on a career in television, always behind the camera.
Everybody in the industry knew. That is still the
thing that angers me the most
Huisman is
convinced that the female agent from Brussels knew about Brunel’s reputation
before she went to Paris. “Everybody in the industry knew,” she says now. “That
is still the thing that pisses me off the most.” Huisman says that four years
ago she confronted the agent. She says she told her over the phone that she was
mistreated by Brunel but was told that Brunel was “too sweet to do such a
thing”.
Zoë Brock,
a 17-year-old model from New Zealand, was in Paris at around the same time. She
tells me: “I was a cheeky, fun-loving, adventurous and sassy kid – kid being
the operative word.” She hadn’t heard about the CBS broadcast either, and her
mother was reassured by her agent that she would be safe at Brunel’s home.
One night
he called her into his bedroom, offered her cocaine and told her that “one of
these days” they would have sex, she says. She took the cocaine but avoided him
after that. However, she was soon told she could no longer stay at Brunel’s
apartment, which Brock believes was punishment for refusing his advances.
In February
1996, 17-year-old schoolgirl Leandra McPartlan-Karol was invited to Paris to
work for Brunel at Karin. She had already been scouted, aged 15, at the local
fair in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She enjoyed school and was a flag-twirler in the
marching band. She was in advanced maths and English classes, and loved
chemistry and poetry. Before her modelling career started taking off, she had
imagined a career trading stocks or as a chemist working on medicines or
vaccines. But by 17, she was in demand in the US modelling industry, doing
shoots for YM, Seventeen and Mademoiselle magazines. She was also photographed
by David LaChapelle for Allure and Details. She had offers of further work in
the US, but breaking into the European market seemed more exciting.
Unlike
Huisman and Brock, McPartlan-Karol’s parents had heard about the CBS show and
its allegations against Brunel, and expressed their nervousness. However, to
allay their concerns, Karin flew a female scout to see her family. “She assured
my parents that nothing like that was going on any more,” says McPartlan-Karol.
Her parents agreed it would be safe for her to go. So she graduated high school
early and made arrangements to fly to Paris.
They were
told that the models’ accommodation was being repaired, so she would stay in
Brunel’s apartment while he was away scouting. But when she arrived, he was
there “and he’d been on one of his notorious, three-day coke binges”, she says
now. After that, there were several dinner parties at the apartment.
McPartlan-Karol says it was at one of these events that Brunel raped her the
first time. “We were all hanging out in his living room and having drinks, and
the next thing I knew I was just blacked out,” she says. “I was in and out
through the rape … I just remember him being on top of me … like on my chest,
forcing his penis in my mouth. That’s basically all I remember.”
McPartlan-Karol attributes her blurry recollection to being in shock. She says
she had slept with her high-school boyfriend, “but I didn’t really have much
experience in anything, so it was all pretty new to me”.
Soon
afterwards, she had the opportunity to model in New York. However, when Brunel
found out, he locked her in her room: “He basically kidnapped me for three days
because he didn’t want me to leave Paris.” She says Brunel’s maid would bring
meals to the door. “My dad had to get on the phone with Jean-Luc and my agent
in Oklahoma, and they had to negotiate my release.” McPartlan-Karol says she
was too embarrassed to tell her parents about the rape. She said Brunel allowed
her to leave on condition that she return to Paris to continue modelling for
Karin afterwards. This time, she could live in the models’ apartment, not with
Brunel.
Back in
Paris, she “compartmentalised” the rape and focused on her work. Staff at Karin
invited her to dinners and parties with “a bunch of older, wealthy men”, most
of which Brunel did not attend. Cocaine flowed freely, she says, and she began
taking it socially. When she did bump into him “it was very kind of casual and
pally and, you know, just making me feel really comfortable”. One night she was
at an agency dinner at Barfly, a popular bar-restaurant, and Brunel was there.
“I don’t remember if we all left together, but I remember him driving me around
in one of his vintage Ferraris back to his place,” she says. “I went upstairs
to watch a movie with Jean-Luc and I was laying on my stomach. He was doing a
lot of cocaine and I think I did a line with him, but it was getting late and I
was kind of ready to go.” But Brunel started massaging her back, she says, “and
that’s when he pinned me down and raped me anally”.
Speaking
from the home she now shares with her film producer husband and four-year-old
son in Hollywood, McPartlan-Karol tells me: “There was always that shame that
it happened that second time, that I let it happen or was responsible for it.”
Even now she tries to explain to me why she went to his apartment, saying: “We
had been doing cocaine so I’m sure I was not making the best choices.” She says
her cocaine use had become a coping mechanism. When she returned to the US and
a family member found the drug in her bag, she says, she stopped taking it.
But despite
McPartlan-Karol’s feelings of guilt, she didn’t want other models to go through
what she had, and told her American agents. Among them was her so-called mother
agent – the term used to describe the first agent a model works with, who
develops their connections to the rest of the industry – in Oklahoma. Speaking
to me now on the condition of anonymity, the agent confirms details of
McPartlan-Karol’s story. “I think it was a Sunday, so it was quiet in the
agency, and she came in and told me the whole story,” he says.
Having
worked with McPartlan-Karol “since she was a kid” and got to know her family,
the agent now feels he “let her down”. He decided to speak to Karin and
confronted the female scout who had flown to the US and reassured
McPartlan-Karol’s family she would be safe. They met in the lobby of a hotel in
Tulsa, he says, and discussed McPartlan-Karol’s case until the early hours of
the morning. He suggested McPartlan-Karol might consider going public, and
raised the possibility of Brunel compensating the model. But he says the scout
“made it very clear that Brunel had a relationship with the Russian mob”. He
says: “I remember her saying, ‘If you don’t let this go, you will just
disappear. That will be the end of it … you’ll just be gone.”
It’s not
known if Brunel really did have mafia connections, but other sources who knew
or worked with him say they suspected as much. Not long after the meeting, the
Oklahoma agent left the industry. He says he is still scared of people linked
to Brunel: “These people are way out of my league.” He adds, “I placed a lot of
girls, but Leandra had the potential to be absolutely amazing, and that’s
what’s so sad.”
Word of
McPartlan-Karol’s allegations also got back to her agent in New York. From that
point on, she says, “my career trajectory changed”. She can’t be sure her
allegations were the reason her agent dropped her, “but back then, once you
came forward about stuff like that, you were kind of damaged goods … they
didn’t want to deal with it”.
In the
mid-2000s she found out via social media that another of her former US
agencies, based in Texas, was still sending models to work for Brunel, even
though it had knowledge of her allegations. “It’s maddening,” she says. “I just
couldn’t understand why you would put another young girl in that situation.
There were so many people who were complicit.”
In the
years since her experiences with Brunel, McPartlan-Karol says she has battled
anxiety and depression. When she learned last year of the criminal case against
him, and that at least 10 other women had come forward (including one with an
allegation from as recently as 2000), she considered reporting her story.
Brunel’s suicide came just as she was about to contact Anne-Claire Lejeune, a
lawyer in Paris representing several of his accusers.
It horrifies me to know in my heart that someone else
is out there doing the exact same thing
Brunel’s
legal team said in a statement at the time: “His distress was that of a man of
75 years old caught up in a media-legal system that we should be questioning.
Jean-Luc Brunel never stopped claiming his innocence and had made many efforts
to prove it. His decision [to end his life] was not driven by guilt but by a
deep sense of injustice.”
When news
of his death reached his victims, they tell me they felt a mixture of dismay
and disappointment. At the time, Huisman, who now lives in Amsterdam with her
boyfriend and their son, and has written a book, Close-up, about her
experiences in Paris, said she was disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to
“look him in the eye in court”. Now, having had more time to process it, she
tells me: “He died behind bars, and why? Because we used our right to come
forward and we used our voices, and I hope it sends a message.” Brock agrees
she is “happy he’s gone” and can no longer hurt any more women.
McPartlan-Karol, now a full-time mother who volunteers with underserved
communities in LA, hopes there’s a possibility for change in the industry:
“Before, it was just like screaming into a void.”
While the
case against Brunel is now unlikely to go to court, a source close to the investigation
tells me that the judge is in “no rush” to close the case, and is keen to
identify other suspects or co-conspirators. Soerensen, now a web developer and
a mother of four, says: “It just horrifies me to know in my heart that someone
else is out there doing the exact same thing.”
In the
months before Brunel died, Marianne Shine was filmed by the Sky
documentary-makers giving her witness testimony over the phone to lawyer
Lejeune, sitting on the sofa next to her 90-year-old mother, who was hearing
her daughter’s story for the first time. She says in the series that Brunel’s
death had left her with “a sense of feeling cheated at the last minute”. Now
she tells me: “Jean-Luc Brunel’s death did not take away my hope. In fact, it’s
fuelled it.” She adds: “I realised that this was much bigger than what happened
to me … it became this big network, this boys’ club.”
Shine is
keenly watching the criminal investigation into Gérald Marie. At least 14 women
have testified, including supermodel Carré Otis. But in contrast to the Brunel
case, none of the women’s allegations fall within France’s 30-year statute of
limitations; unless a more recent one emerges, Marie will not be charged. “I
think the pressure cooker is really rising,” says Shine. “He needs to be
accountable for the decades-long abuse that he’s rained down on these women.”
Marie’s
lawyer says he “categorically denies” the accusations against him, which “date
back more than 40 years”, adding: “The complainants are attempting to conflate
Jean-Luc Brunel, now deceased, with Gérald Marie. They therefore intend to
frame my client as a scapegoat for a system, for an era, that is now over.
However, in France, one does not condemn a system; one condemns a person,
provided that it is proven that he or she has committed an offence. This proof
is sorely lacking in this case.”
Shine, now
quietly determined, says: “For many years, I was quiet. But I’m not any more …
If you don’t step forward and talk about it, it’s going to continue to happen.”