Top TV stars were on the guest list of the Presidents Club gala where hostesses reported being groped and harassed, it emerged today.
The secretive organisation announced it was closing yesterday after undercover reporters exposed sexual impropriety at its high-class auction at London’s Dorchester Hotel.
It emerged today that TV chef Gino D’Acampo and Jay Rutland, the husband of Tamara Ecclestone, were among guests at the event. There is no suggestion either of them were involved in inappropriate behaviour.
The guest list also included comedian Jimmy Tarbuck and TV ‘Dragons’ Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis. It is unclear whether they attended the event and there is no suggestion they were involved in any impropriety.
TV chef Gino D’Acampo (left, in 2017) and Jay Rutland (right with his wife Tamara Ecclestone at a separate event last year) were both guests at the Presidents Club ball, it emerged today. Mr Rutland is understood to have left early
Comedian Jimmy Tarbuck (left, last year) were on the guest list although it is unclear it he attended. Restauranteur Jimmy Lahoud (right in 2016) was reportedly seen at the event
Jimmy Lahoud, a 67-year-old businessman and top restaurateur, was, according to the FT, dancing ‘enthusiastically with three young women’.
Labour peer and lobbyist Lord Jonathan Mendelsohn was also confirmed to have attended, but has said he did not see any of the ‘appalling events’ described in reports.
Peter Bellman, a property boss who has attended the Presidents Club for 30 years, insisted the claims of harassment were ‘utter rubbish’.
He told The Times: ‘There are hostesses but they are just to make it a fun event. It’s meant to be a boys’ night out but the focus is on the charity.’
Property firm boss Robert Soning, whose company Londonewcastle hosted a table, told the paper that the scandal was ‘a non-event’.
There is no suggestion any of the men were involved in any impropriety.
Dragons’ Den stars Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis were also on the guest list although it is not clear whether they attended
The night was hosted by David Walliams, who is not the subject of any allegations
The event was hosted by comedian and children’s author David Walliams.
Mr Walliams said in a statement that he attended ‘in a strictly professional capacity’ and ‘did not witness any of the kind of behaviour that allegedly occurred’, adding that he was ‘absolutely appalled’.
His fee from this year’s event has been donated to the Children’s Trust, while a prize lot offered by the television judge will be withdrawn, a spokeswoman for the star added.
Reaction to the scandal has focused on Nadhim Zahawi, the government minister who attended the night but says he left at 9.35pm as he felt ‘uncomfortable’.
Mr Zahawi is said to have been given a ‘dressing down’ and asked to explain his attendance after being called to a meeting with Tory chief whip Julian Smith yesterday.
Labour peer Lord Jonathan Mendelsohn (left) and government minister Nadhim Zahawi (right) both attended
The club’s trustees are businessmen David Meller (left) and Bruce Ritchie (pictured with his wife Shadi)
David Meller, 58, one of the co-chairmen of the Presidents Club Charitable Trust, left his post as a non-executive board member at the Department of Education amid repeated calls for him to go.
He also quit a position on the board of the Mayor’s Fund for London, a social mobility charity, last night.
Mr Meller is a generous Conservative party donor who helps run his family’s company, the Meller Group, one of the largest luxury home and beauty suppliers in the UK.
In the latest New Year’s honours list, Mr Meller received an MBE ‘for services to education’.
Businessmen outside the secretive Presidents Club charity dinner, at which more than 100 ‘hostesses’ were brought in, with some reportedly being groped and propositioned. It not suggested those in this image took part in an impropriety
The Presidents Club’s other co-chairman was Bruce Ritchie, 52, who runs property development company Residential Land.
Educated at private Dulwich College in South London, he started life as a sole trader. According to the company, he has over the years built up ‘prime central London’s largest private landlord’.
He was also the joint owner with Marco Pierre White of the White Star Line restaurant group, which included Mirabelle, Drones, Quo Vadis and Criterion.