DAVID SULLIVAN SUES BBC FOR £150 MILLION OVER PANORAMA CLAIMS

David Sullivan is suing the BBC at the High Court for more than £150 million, his lawyers have confirmed, over allegations made in a Panorama documentary. The claims stem from accounts reported by the BBC and The Times in June, when seven women alleged that Sullivan engaged in sexually exploitative and predatory behaviour. Sullivan, the former joint chairman of West Ham United, denies the allegations. He stepped down from the club shortly before the claims were made public.

The allegations date back to the 1980s and 1990s, when Sullivan owned the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport tabloid newspapers. In a statement issued when he stood down, Sullivan said he was fighting "factually incorrect and entirely false, decades-old allegations" about his personal life, which he said had been "sensationalised by the media". He said that after a lifetime building businesses in the adult industry, having met thousands of women, it was "sadly inevitable" that a small number of improper conduct claims would be made against him, and that he "categorically" denied them. He left his position at West Ham days before the documentary was broadcast.

In a further statement, Sullivan sought to clarify reports of a "negotiated agreement" with the Football Association, saying it had been described inaccurately as a disciplinary ban. He said that in 16 years at West Ham he had never met academy or women's team players one-to-one, and that the agreement was a temporary arrangement not to do so while the FA resolved a single anonymous complaint about an event in 1981. He said the complaint "had nothing to do" with his time in football and "never happened". His High Court claim against the BBC is ongoing.