TOPSHOP BILLIONAIRE PHILIP Green has been named in the UK’s House of Lords as the businessman behind an injunction which prevented the Telegraph reporting on allegations of sexual harassment and racial abuse against him.
The Telegraph reported yesterday that it had conducted an eight-month investigation into allegations of bullying, intimidation and sexual harassment made against a businessman but that it was prevented from naming them due to a court order.
UK politicians were among those to criticise the gagging order and other newspapers also reported that the order had been made.
Speaking today in the UK parliament’s upper chamber, Labour peer Peter Hain said that he was naming Green as the “powerful businessman” in question.
“My Lords, having been in contact with someone intimately involved in the case of a powerful businessman using non-disclosure agreements and substantial payments to conceal the truth about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying, which is compulsively continuing, I feel it is my duty under parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the individual in question. Given that the media have been subject to an injunction, preventing the publication of the full details of a story which is clearly in the public interest,” Hain said.
In its initial report titled “The British #MeToo scandal which cannot be revealed”, The Telegraph said that it had fought the court order and argued that there was: “a clear public interest in publishing the claims, not least to alert those who might be applying to work for him.”
Parliamentary privilege allows members in the UK’s House of Commons and House of Lords to speak freely without the potential for legal ramifications, such as a defamation lawsuit.
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