Rachel Reeves has admitted she accepted money for clothes, as the backlash over gifts from donors threatened to overshadow the Labour Party conference this weekend.

The Chancellor has received almost £7,500 for clothing since 2023 from a friend called Juliet Rosenfeld, the widow of a Labour donor caught up in the 2006 cash for honours scandal.

It comes after it emerged that both Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, accepted thousands of pounds towards clothes from Lord Alli, the Labour donor.

The Prime Minister, Ms Rayner and Ms Reeves all made clear on Friday night that they would stop taking donations for clothes now that they were in office.

The sudden change in position, after days of Downing Street defending the Prime Minister’s stance on donations, was rushed out ahead of the party’s four-day conference in Liverpool, which was meant to be a moment of celebration after the election victory.

The decision was made after Labour figures started to express disquiet at the No 10 defence, with some MPs calling for Sir Keir to promise to take no more “freebies”.

But the Prime Minister’s new stance does not include giving up hospitality such as football tickets, indicating he will continue to have his Arsenal corporate tickets paid for by others.

There are now calls for the clothing donations to be paid back. One Labour MP told The Telegraph: “It’s either right or it’s wrong. If it’s wrong now then it was always wrong, so it follows they should reimburse.”

The development follows a week in which the Government has faced huge pressure over donations accepted by Sir Keir, his wife and other senior politicians.

Lord Alli, a former television show creator said to be worth £200 million, has given nearly £1 million to the party.

Sir Keir’s wife, Lady Starmer, had received £5,000 worth of clothing and personal shopping from the donor. The Prime Minister accepted £16,200 worth of “work clothing” from Lord Alli in April, three months before he won the election.

MPs are required to declare gifts and donations to the parliamentary authorities within 28 days of receiving them and they are then published on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

However, the Prime Minister declared the gifts to his wife late, after initially believing they did not need to be added to the register.

It has emerged that Lord Alli has in the past publicly called for a crackdown on “bullying newspapers”.

In a separate development, The Telegraph can disclose that David Lammy took £10,000 from a Saudi-supporting PR executive months before he became Foreign Secretary.

The Prime Minister has also faced questions over the power held by Sue Gray, his chief of staff, after it emerged she was being paid more than him.

Earlier this week, he was forced to insist that he had not lost control of Downing Street, despite Ms Gray’s salary being leaked in an apparent attempt to damage her politically.

One of Sir Keir’s most senior allies, Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, rallied around Ms Gray in an interview with The Telegraph, saying he didn’t think she was “going anywhere”.

On Friday, it emerged that Ms Reeves, who has faced criticism for deciding to end winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners, benefited from cash donations for clothing.

She received four donations since the start of last year totalling £7,367 from Ms Rosenfeld, who Ms Reeves’s team said was a long-standing friend.

The donations, which all date before Ms Reeves entered government, were declared on the register of interests. However, no mention of clothing specifically was included.

Ms Reeves’s team believe no change in the declarations is needed, having consulted with the parliamentary authorities, because the money was later spent on clothes rather than clothing items specifically being donated.

Ms Rosenfeld, a psychotherapist and author, is the wife of Andrew Rosenfeld, a multi-millionaire businessman who died in 2015, aged 52, from cancer.

He had become a prominent Labour donor, and lent £1 million to Sir Tony Blair’s party ahead of the 2005 general election.

He was later invited to a dinner with the then prime minister in Downing Street and became embroiled in the cash for honours scandal after his name was suggested for a peerage.

A loophole in the law meant that while those making donations had to declare the money, loans at commercial rates did not need to be publicly declared.

It later emerged that Labour had planned to hand a number of people who had made the loans peerages in a draft honours list drawn up in September 2005.

New details have also emerged about Ms Rayner’s clothing donations. It had already come to light that she had accepted £2,230 worth of free clothing from the brand ME+EM.

On Friday, her team confirmed that a £3,550 donation from Lord Alli dated June 2024, described in the register as “donation in kind for undertaking parliamentary duties”, was actually clothing. Ms Rayner’s team is now updating her registration of interests to make the full details clear.

Reports that the donation was actually clothes first emerged in the Financial Times on Friday. It is the latest example of apparent briefing and infighting inside No 10. A hunt for the leaker of Ms Gray’s salary is already under way over fears government insiders are briefing against senior Labour figures.

Ms Reeves, Ms Rayner and Sir Keir have all now pledged not to take clothing donations in the future. Sir Keir will also not accept donations of spectacles, having done so from Lord Alli.

But the Prime Minister has not promised to stop taking tickets for football matches or concerts, such as the Taylor Swift show he attended with his wife.

On Thursday, Sir Keir defended his decision to accept corporate tickets at Arsenal, the football club he has regularly attended with his son and friends, on grounds of safety.

The Prime Minister said he could no longer sit in the same place in the stands that he had for more than a decade given the security risk, hence why he now attends in a corporate area.

That, however, does not explain why he does not take on the financial cost himself.

Some Labour MPs have called for Sir Keir to vow to stop taking all “freebies”.

One told The Telegraph: “Loads of us are livid. This is what hypocrisy looks like – and most of us have been fighting the ‘they’re all the same’ rhetoric for our whole careers, Keir’s double standards just prove it’s entirely accurate.”

Another said acceptance of such gifts could grate on the public since ordinary people “don’t have any gifts adorned on them”.

NHS hospitals are increasingly charging patients for treatment, with income rising by a quarter in just a year.

The figure is expected to keep rising, with trusts hoping to take advantage of Labour’s “relaxed” attitude to the private sector.

Analysts said that hospitals – which are facing a deficit of more than £2 billion this year – were seeking to maximise potential income from patients facing huge waiting lists.

Many offer patients private rooms and hotel-style accommodation, including fruit baskets and daily newspapers.

Five of the top 10 central London NHS trusts have released accounts that show combined forecast revenue of £197 million. Great Ormond Street Hospital, Barts Health and Royal Free saw the biggest growth, followed by Guy’s and St Thomas’, and Chelsea and Westminster.

Analysts said growth was similar across the country, with average increases of around 23 per cent at the two-thirds of trusts that had published their accounts.

Across the sector, that could mean more than £770 million raked in by NHS hospitals for private patients in the past financial year – a record, and up from £675 million in 2019-20.

Estimates suggest the figure could reach £1 billion by 2025-26.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has vowed to go further than Sir Tony Blair in using independent sector capacity to ease NHS pressures, while saying the health service must remain free at the point of use.

Last week, an independent investigation by Lord Darzi found that NHS hospitals were doing less work for their patients despite being handed more money.

His report warned that productivity had dipped sharply, with medics wasting ever more time owing to a lack of beds, diagnostics and other kit.

The figures on income from private patients also come amid warnings from Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, that next month’s Budget will involve “difficult decisions” to plug a £22 billion black hole.  The national debt – the sum total of every deficit – is now 100 per cent of Britain’s gross domestic product.

Many NHS trusts with long waiting lists offer patients fast access to consultations, diagnostics and treatment if they choose to pay for it.

Some have found other ways to bolster their funds, by charging NHS patients extra to stay in better accommodation.

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has begun offering single private rooms to patients for up to £205 a night with an en suite bathroom. The hotel-style package, which began being offered earlier this year, includes a basket of fruit, a widescreen television and a daily newspaper.

NHS hospital trusts are permitted to generate up to 49 per cent of their income from private patients. In recent years, most trusts which earned private income received much less, with most getting less than 10 per cent.

Analysts said the combination of long waiting lists and straitened NHS finances meant hospitals were increasingly trying to maximise their income from private patients.

Experts said hospitals without private patients units were losing out on income, because patients with health insurance were often prepared to use it, but struggled to find private hospitals that could carry out the treatment required.

Many large private chains focus on low-intensity, high-volume surgery, such as cataracts and hip and knee operations.

NHS trusts with private patient units – which can mean a whole wing, or just a few beds – are often more able to carry out complex work, including cancer and heart treatment, and revision surgery, and have the back-up of intensive care facilities.

Philip Housden, of Housden Group, a specialist healthcare consultancy, which analysed the accounts of major trusts with private patients units, said: “If patients with health insurance can’t be seen in a private hospital – perhaps because the case is complex – then the NHS will often end up having to treat them, and footing the bill. It means the public purse is effectively subsidising private health insurers.

“All of this adds to pressures on NHS waiting lists, and costs for hospital trusts. I imagine that the Labour Government will be thinking about this.”

He said NHS trusts were estimated to be losing around £1 billion a year in treating patients that could have been treated as private patients, using health insurance.

He said increasing use of private services in the NHS was a way of “placing more of the rising costs of the NHS on to the broadest shoulders”.

However, another senior health service source described NHS private patient units as the “dirty secret” of the NHS, because facilities funded by the taxpayer were used for those who were able to pay, although staffing costs were paid for by the private sector.

England’s health system is forecasting a deficit of around £2.2 billion across its services for 2024-25.

Health leaders say that despite £165 billion funding for the NHS – a record, outside of the pandemic – trusts are struggling to make ends meet, partly because of major costs in recent years, such as the £3 billion covering strikes.

One NHS source said trusts were seeking ways to maximise their income, while cutting waiting times. He said many trust leaders felt encouraged by the stance taken by the Health Secretary, who has said he will go “further” than Sir Tony in using the private sector to ease NHS pressures.

He said: “I think Labour is in some ways happier to see the grey area between public and private spending, there is a tendency to be more relaxed about it.

“There are some ironclad rules, it can’t come at the expense of NHS patients, but the Health Secretary has made clear his interest in use of the private sector, and trusts will act accordingly”.

Under Sir Tony, Labour introduced Patient Choice, allowing patients to have NHS treatment carried out by the private sector. Meanwhile, private healthcare groups were given contracts to carry out block contracts of work for the NHS, such as cataract operations and hip and knee surgery.

Use of the private sector is expected to feature heavily in the 10-year plan for the NHS, due to be published next year.

The senior NHS source said: “The public is quite pragmatic, as long as the outcome is good they don’t care who provides it.

“Often you have got the same consultants who would be working privately elsewhere doing that work on your site, and bringing in income to your trust.”

The trends come as the public grows increasingly resigned to paying for their care.

A survey by the  Independent Healthcare Providers Network shows that almost seven in 10 people (67 per cent) say that they would consider using private healthcare.

Data from the Private Healthcare Information Network show record numbers of hospital admissions of private patients, with 238,000 in the first quarter of 2024, up from 199,000 admissions in the same quarter in 2019.

Sir Julian Hartley, the chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, said: “Providing some private care allows NHS trusts to reinvest that income in services for patients. Faced with growing demand and a tough financial climate, trusts have cut the longest waits for treatment and continue to work flat out to see patients as quickly as possible.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The NHS is broken, forcing many patients who can afford it to choose to go private for faster healthcare. Meanwhile, those who can’t are left behind in a two-tier system.

“This Government will take a principled but pragmatic approach to the use of the private sector to cut the NHS care backlog. In the long-term, our 10-Year plan will reform the NHS so no one feels forced to pay for treatment.”

Shift pattern data used in the Lucy Letby trial was “scientifically worthless” a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society has heard.

One of the most damning pieces of evidence presented to the jury at Letby’s trial was a chart indicating that the nurse was always on duty at the Countess of Chester Hospital when babies collapsed or died.

The table, which covered a 13-month period between June 2015 and June 2016, showed that while the 38 other nurses were in attendance on just a handful of occasions when suspicious incidents occurred, Letby was at the scene of all of them.

However, statisticians were so concerned about the chart that they convened a meeting at the RSS headquarters in London on Thursday to discuss how statistics are used in court cases.

Dealing specifically with the Letby data, the meeting heard how the rota pattern was a “scientific fake” which could not be reproduced independently.

Statisticians said there were “issues with the selection and collection of data” used in the chart and warned there may be “many other possible causal factors not being considered that might explain these deaths”.

‘Bigger impact than it deserves’

The duty roster evidence was described as “feeble” and “had a way bigger impact than it deserves” with experts arguing that not enough attention had been paid to alternative explanations, such as the different shift patterns of the nurses and whether some were more likely to be on duty than others.

The meeting, which was held in private under Chatham House rules which allow attendees to remain anonymous, heard that statistical evidence was “worthless” and there had been no concrete evidence of a spike in deaths at the hospital.

In August 2023, Letby was convicted of the murders of seven newborns and the attempted murders of six other infants. A retrial in July 2024 also found her guilty of the attempted murder of another child.

Since the conviction, numerous scientists, statisticians and doctors have expressed their concern about the evidence presented to the jury regarding shift patterns, medical conclusions and the standard of care at the Countess of Chester.

The police and prosecution have defended the chart, saying it was just one brick in a wall of evidence which showed that Letby was undoubtedly guilty.

Speaking about the evidence after the meeting, Dr Jane Hutton, a professor of statistics at the University of Warwick, said: “It’s a large pile of crockery, much of which is broken. Such a pile does not hold water however big it is.

“We’re not saying the conviction is unsafe, but we consider that if the concerns we are raising are essential to the decisions of the court, then the convictions are unsafe.”

Nurses were later exonerated

The meeting heard how similar shift pattern data was used to convict a Dutch paediatric nurse and Italian nurse Daniela Poggiali, both of whom were later exonerated.

Statisticians warned that statistical evidence was being “abused by the courts in the way that it’s used in trials”.

Members of the RSS said they were asking for parity in court cases, with statisticians invited to be present if statistical evidence was shown to the jury.

“If toxicology was represented you would expect a toxicologist to be present,” they said.

The meeting heard how shift pattern charts had the potential to spark confirmation bias which could taint further evidence.

Statisticians also said that there was no evidence of a spike in deaths at the Countess of Chester once the hospital was seen against other similar units and warned that clusters do happen in medical settings.

“There is evidence of coming last,” said one expert. “But coming last is not the scene of crime.”

In 2022 the RSS produced a report entitled “Health care serial killer or coincidence?” to help legal teams present data correctly.

The report warned that investigators must always bear in mind that there may be innocent explanations for apparent and even striking correlations between a medical professional’s presence and deaths or other incidents.

It recommended that investigators and prosecutors consult professional independent statisticians who could give instructions to the jury on how to interpret the data.

It also advised that confounding factors that could distort the figures should be made clear. But none of the recommendations were followed in the Letby trial.

The meeting concluded by calling for greater collaboration between statisticians and the legal profession in the future.

More than a decade ago, the Crown Prosecution Service, then led by Sir Keir Starmer, found itself at the centre of a storm over its failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile, who used his fame to become one of the most prolific sexual predators Britain has ever known. 

This summer, the CPS came under fire once again, with former ministers criticising the body for taking more than a month to announce that it had brought charges against the BBC presenter Huw Edwards for accessing indecent images of children.

Now, the prosecutor’s failure, also during Starmer’s time at its helm, to charge Mohamed Fayed with sexual assault, has highlighted what campaigners and lawyers see as a pattern of Britain’s authorities appearing intimidated at the idea of taking on the rich and famous. The decision was highlighted this week when it emerged that dozens of women have now accused the late Harrods owner of abuse.

Fayed was interviewed by the Metropolitan Police under caution in 2008 after a 15-year-old girl told detectives she had been sexually assaulted by the then owner of the exclusive London department store. The following year, the CPS announced that no charges would be brought because there was “no realistic prospect of conviction”. 

The case has raised the spectre of Savile, the former BBC presenter, who the CPS similarly decided against prosecuting. The full extent of the allegations against both Savile and Fayed only came to light after the death of each man – in 2011 and last year respectively.  

The decision not to prosecute either Savile or Fayed occurred when Starmer was director of public prosecutions at the CPS. However, the Prime Minister and Number 10, have said that neither case crossed his desk. 

The CPS also faced criticism for not announcing the charges against Edwards. The disgraced BBC presenter was charged in June but the details only emerged in August, after the date of his first court appearance was published by Westminster magistrates. There is typically an expectation of disclosure when there is a significant public and media interest in a specific case. 

Earlier this month, Edwards avoided jail when he was given a six-month suspended sentence at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children. Kemi Badenoch branded the decision an example of  “two-tier” justice and called for an urgent overhaul of sentencing rules. At the time, the CPS said: “Decisions on charging announcements are based on operational factors and no defendant receives preferential treatment.”

In 2016, there was an inquiry into why the Labour peer Lord Janner was never put on trial despite facing allegations of abusing children that dated back decades. The scandal was branded an “establishment cover-up” by victims’ groups – although one of Janner’s accusers was revealed to be Carl Beech, himself a paedophile, who was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and of fraud in 2019. 

Janner, who died in December 2015, always maintained his innocence and was never convicted. His family continue to campaign for his name to be cleared.

But Richard Henriques, the retired judge who reviewed the case, severely criticised both the CPS and Leicestershire police for mishandling three investigations into Janner. He found that there was enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction in both 1991 and 2007. 

Henriques concluded that Janner should have been arrested and interviewed at the latter date. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) later found that police and prosecutors “appeared reluctant to fully investigate” claims against Lord Janner despite “numerous serious allegations”.

“On multiple occasions police put too little emphasis on looking for supporting evidence and shut down investigations without pursuing all outstanding inquiries,” said Prof Alexis Jay, who chaired the IICSA.

“This inquiry has brought up themes we are now extremely familiar with, such as deference to powerful individuals, the barriers to reporting faced by children and the need for institutions to have clear policies and procedures setting out how to respond to allegations of child sexual abuse.”

Richard Scorer, the head of abuse law at Slater & Gordon, believes that the UK has a problem bringing powerful wrong-doers to justice compared with, for example, the US. He cites three main reasons for this. 

The first is the UK’s notoriously strict libel laws, which he says has “a stifling effect” on victims coming forward in the first place. In the US, by contrast, those making allegations against figures such as Fayed and Savile would be afforded first amendment protections under the right to free speech. 

Several media organisations reported on allegations of sexual abuse against Fayed in the past, including Vanity Fair in 1995, ITV in 1997 and Channel 4 in 2017. Meirion Jones, a former BBC journalist whose Newsnight investigation into Savile was pulled, says the high legal bills these outlets incurred likely put others off further investigation. 

“The knowledge about what al Fayed was alleged to have done was out there in the world but the trap never sprung shut on him,” he says. “The legal bills in these cases can quickly add up to seven figures and that’s clearly a disincentive to go after those with deep pockets.” 

The second reason, according to Scorer, is that the UK’s criminal justice is crumbling after years of underfunding. Scorer says it can now take between five and six years to bring sexual assault and rape cases to trial, which is “totally unacceptable”. 

Sir Bob Neill, the former Conservative MP and chair of the Commons justice committee, agrees, but adds that the UK justice system has long had a poor record of dealing with allegations of sexual crimes of all kinds, a weakness that is further exacerbated when the perpetrator of those crimes is well-known. 

“There’s long been a concern that victims haven’t come forward because they were worried they wouldn’t be believed and clearly that concern is amplified if the alleged perpetrator is famous or rich,” says Neill. “There has been a lot of work to address this problem but there’s clearly still some way to go.” 

Scorer’s third point is that there is far more direct political accountability within the legal system in the US than in the UK. In the US, the prosecutor’s office has increasingly become a stepping stone to higher office. (Kamala Harris, for example, was previously the district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California. Both these positions are elected.)

There are definitely downsides to this system. Research suggests that this has had significant negative consequences for US criminal law, including making justice outcomes more punitive for civilians (and driving mass incarcerations) and noticeably more lax for the police.

However, it has also ensured that the powerful are more likely to be held to account for criminal actions. Prosecutors know that there is no surer route to getting their own names in the headlines than putting a famous person behind bars. 

Victims’ groups agree that the US justice system seems to be less cowed by the power of alleged perpetrators generally. The MeToo movement has resulted in a wave of high-profile cases and convictions for rape and sexual assault, including Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby. 

But whereas it makes career sense for prosecutors to charge powerful people in the US, the reverse tends to be true in the UK. “Here the calculus flips,” says Scorer. “If you go after someone famous, you’ll likely tie up huge amounts of resources and there’s a huge downside if the case fails.” 

He points out there are very limited mechanisms for holding the CPS and the police to account when they choose not to prosecute. In 2018, the Metropolitan Police lost an appeal against two rape victims, who won compensation over its handling of the case of black cab rapist John Worboys. However, the victims had to make their claim under article three of the Human Rights Act – the right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment.

“The performance of the CPS isn’t going to improve until it gets more resources and until it faces greater political accountability,” says Scorer. “We know that the CPS can fast-track certain cases if it wants but such decisions are taken in a very bureaucratic way with little or no explanation.” 

Jones argues that there might be a broader cultural problem in the UK, which is perhaps a hangover from the class system, in which people are “too willing to doff the cap” to those in power. He adds that that culture is changing but perhaps less quickly than many presume. 

Laura Paisley, a barrister at Mountford Chambers, counters that a number of famous and powerful people have been prosecuted in the UK in recent years. They include Rolf Harris and the publicist Max Clifford.

Paisley points out that such cases take a long time to investigate and that the culture may only appear to be changing more slowly in the UK than in the US because the criminal justice system is under such strain. 

However, women’s groups argue that there is also a power imbalance at play in many of these cases. “Perpetrators have long used their wealth, status and power to abuse women and girls with impunity,” says Andrea Simon, executive director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition. 

“We live in an unequal social system that puts men in a position of power relative to women and girls. Sexual violence is a consequence of this, with women and girls comprising the vast majority of victims. 

“This inequality is deeply embedded in our culture, institutions and legal systems, with wealthy perpetrators able to weaponise the law to silence victims and prevent reporting on their experiences through non-disclosure agreements and super-injunctions.”

A CPS spokesman says of Fayed: “We reviewed files of evidence presented by the police in 2009 and 2015.

“To bring a prosecution the CPS must be confident there is a realistic prospect of conviction – in each instance our prosecutors looked carefully at the evidence and concluded this wasn’t the case.”

Ryan Beierman was out hunting in western Wisconsin when he suddenly came face-to-face with the black bear he had been tracking through the dense forest.

The business agent fired off eight bullets from his pistol but all of them missed, and within seconds the 200-pound predator had pinned him down and started tearing his face apart.

He desperately flailed around but was unable to free himself as the bear sank its teeth and claws into him.

But their near-deadly tussle came to an abrupt end when his 12-year-old son, Owen, shot and killed the animal with a hunting rifle.

“I was proud of Owen,” Mr Beierman, 43, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “He really held it together. But after it was all over, you could tell he was pretty shaken.”

Mr Beierman had taken a day off work and let his son miss school so they could go on a bear hunt near their family cabin in western Wisconsin.

When Owen came across the creature he fired at it and wounded it, prompting it to flee while the father and son duo tracked it through the woods.

It was only later in the day, after darkness had fallen, when Mr Beierman came across the bear – just five or six feet away from him.

“He was in a stance like a cat about to pounce,’’ he said. “The next thing I know he was on me. He charged and knocked me down.’’

Recalling the bear’s hot breath as it sank its teeth into his face, he frantically thrashed about, trying in vain to break free and get out from under the enormous creature that had pinned him down.

“The bear was fighting for its life, and I was fighting for mine,’’ he said.

The pair were locked together in a desperate struggle for around a minute, with Mr Beierman desperately hitting the bear with the blunt edge of his empty pistol to little effect.

“Before I knew it I was flat on my back. I started pistol whipping him and it felt like I was striking a brick wall. I remember thinking: “You have to do something different,’” he said.

When the bear reared back and lunged for Mr Beierman’s face, he lifted his right arm to block the renewed attack and heard a “crunch”. The bear had only punctured the skin but at the time he believed his arm was broken.

Saving his father’s life, Owen intervened, killing it with his 350 Legend hunting rifle.

“I didn’t think twice,” Owen, a young hunting enthusiast whose family home is full of trophies from past expeditions, told NBC News. “I just shot it.”

“I was flat on my back and could feel the bullet going through the bear. Owen was a hero. He shot that bear and killed it on top of me,” Mr Beierman said.

The 43-year-old was left bleeding profusely after the mauling, and was taken to hospital in an ambulance after his neighbours called the emergency services.

He couldn’t even manage to call his wife as too much blood was falling onto the phone screen. “Owen, still composed, helped me with all of that,” he said.

Mr Beierman’s left cheek had been sliced open and had to be reattached with 23 stitches, while teeth marks were left in his forehead.

David Lammy took £10,000 from a Saudi-supporting PR executive months before he became Foreign Secretary, The Telegraph can disclose.

Muddassar Ahmed donated the money to support his office through Silk Road Consultancy, a company with no employees of which Mr Ahmed is the sole director.

Silk Road Consultancy also donated £10,000 to Shabana Mahmood MP, the Lord High Chancellor, before the general election.

Mr Ahmed, 41, who is managing partner of the PR firm Unitas Communications, has previously praised Saudi Arabia and its policies in blogs and comment articles.

Writing in the Daily Express in 2016, he chastised Boris Johnson, who said at the time that the state of Saudi Arabia was “puppeteering” in the Middle East.

Mr Ahmed wrote: “What does he expect – a parliamentary democracy with a secular constitution ruling over the Muslim holy sites in Mecca and Medina?”

In July, he spoke on a panel at the London Stock Exchange about “Saudi Arabia and religious pilgrimage” which “centred on innovative ways to enhance a pilgrim’s journey” and to enrich the experience, according to a social media post.

He also publicly praised Lammy for seeking to “break free from the delusions of grandeur of yesteryear and embrace partnership opportunities instead of its traditional, hypocritical lectures”.

In a comment piece calling on Sir Keir Starmer to reset relations with the Middle East, he added: “With the visionary input of high-profile Muslim politicians, businessmen, academics and community leaders, the party can start to build bridges both within the UK and farther afield.”

The website for Unitas Communications lists clients including the Islamic Development Bank, which is majority owned by the Saudi government.

Mr Ahmed claimed that the bank had been listed on the website in error after Unitas collaborated with it on “an event a few years ago”.

He told The Telegraph: “The Islamic Development Bank is not and has never been a Unitas client. The Saudi government is not and has also never been a Unitas client.

“Unitas is a global communications agency and, like many others agencies, works with diverse clientele across the world. Its revenue is derived largely from regions of the world outside of MENA [the Middle East and North Africa].

“Moreover, donations made by me to David Lammy and Shabana Mahmood were not made from Unitas company funds.

“I have indeed criticised British foreign policy in the Middle East as you have pointed out, and spoken at an event at the London Stock Exchange themed on Hajj.

“We collaborated with the Bank on an event a few years ago, and it is not currently or ever has been a client. It has been listed in error.”

Asked if he would donate more money to Labour he added: “Quite possibly.”

According to an online CV, Mr Ahmed was the founder and chairman of The Concordia Forum, an organisation that brought together senior leaders from government, corporate and other sectors to an annual retreat called “The Forum”.

In October 2023, The Concordia Network paid for the flights, accommodation, food and “activities” of Labour MP Afzal Khan to speak at and attend the annual retreat totalling £3,035.79.

Unitas Communications also donated flights and accommodation to Ms Mahmood to speak at the Concordia event, totalling £2,380.

The Register of Interests also shows that Naz Shah MP, who previously served as shadow minister for crime reduction, was paid £5,000 by the Concordia Network for two speeches in January and March 2023.

Earlier in 2024, the Concordia Forum also hosted Sir Keir Starmer, along with several cabinet ministers and senior Labour politicians, for an Iftar event.

Listed among the 1,000 most influential Londoners, Mr Ahmed has met the Prime Minister and Mr Lammy.

‘The transformation is incredible’

He has also been pictured with other figures including Michel Temer, the former president of Brazil, and Hillary Clinton.

Asked about his relationship with Saudi Arabia, he said: “I think that what is happening in Saudi in terms of the transformation, the economic political religious, social is actually incredible.

“I mean, that’s something that I think is pretty interesting, the ramifications of the Muslim world are huge.”

Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi foreign minister, met with Mr Lammy in London in August.

Mr Ahmed has previously accused the Tory party of being Islamaphobic with  anti-Muslim attitudes and suggested that there are racial double standards in government global policy-making.

In an article for Arab News published in 2023 criticising Suella Braverman, then the home secretary, he wrote: “Ukrainian refugees rightly benefited from a relatively efficient system that welcomed them into safe and warm accommodation.

“But Sudanese refugees have very few options open to them if they want to seek safety in Europe. Sudan’s immediate neighbours are struggling with their own internal conflicts and instability, meaning that any Sudanese wishing to flee to Europe will be at the mercy of dangerous smuggling gangs, which will be more than happy to exploit their misery.

“Denying the possibility of safe routes to the UK is not just deeply callous to Sudanese but also deeply offensive to British citizens who do not think in racist terms – or who themselves might not be white.”

The Labour Party declined to comment.

More than 100 women have come forward after former Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed was accused of the “serial” sexual abuse of young women who worked at the department store.

 About one hundred enquiries have been made to a legal team since a BBC documentary aired on Thursday evening about the claims, according to one of the barristers representing 37 of the late billionaire’s accusers. 

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, barrister Bruce Drummond said the cases were “rapidly evolving and expanding every day”.

It comes during continued fallout from the broadcaster’s exposé, in which more than 20 female former employees of the luxury store have spoken out with allegations of assault and physical violence over a 25-year-period.

On Friday, it was revealed that one woman who accused Fayed of sexual assault was allegedly warned she might “have an accident” by his bodyguard. 

After making a formal complaint to Harrods, the woman is said to have received a note from the late John Macnamara, a former Metropolitan Police officer, saying she must rescind her allegation.

“You are a girl alone in London, someone could jump out the bushes at you, or you could have a sudden accident,” the note said.

The allegation came as a lawyer representing dozens of women who claim to have been abused by Fayed insisted Harrods must take responsibility for the years of sexual abuse allegedly committed by the “monster”.

Dean Armstrong KC, a barrister who is representing some of the tycoon’s reported victims, told a press conference that the case “combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein”.

He said: “I have many years of practice… I have never seen a case as horrific as this.”

Addressing how the case combined elements of three of the most high-profile abuse scandals, he said: “Savile because in this case, as in that, the institution, we say, knew about the behaviour.

“Epstein because in that case, as in this, there was a procurement system in place to source the women and girls – as you know, there are some very young victims.

“And Weinstein, because it was a person at the very top of the organisation who was abusing his power.

“We will say plainly, Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster.”

Michael Ward, the managing director of Harrods, was under pressure from staff who rubbished claims that the organisation had changed since Fayed’s alleged actions had taken place.

Harrods said in a statement that the company was “a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Mr Fayed”, and that it “seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything [they] do”.

United Voices of the World (UWV), a union that represents low-paid and migrant workers, said organisers wrote to Harrods demanding an urgent meeting to discuss its members’ concerns, but claimed it had been refused.

On Friday, UVW accused Harrods’ current bosses of fostering “a culture of secrecy and fear” in the workplace.

In a statement, it said: “The imbalance of power within the company makes it impossible for workers to be sure that any concerns they have will be acknowledged and dealt with accordingly.

“The general feeling among Harrods’ workers is that we are at the bottom of the company’s priorities, forced into submission with the odds stacked against us.”

They pointed out that Mr Ward, who has been in the post since 2005, oversaw the luxury retailer both while it was under Fayed’s ownership and afterwards.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of Mr Ward.

A Harrods spokesman said: “UVW is not a recognised union by Harrods and therefore we do not engage with this organisation on our policies. We work with Unite as our recognised union.”

Petros Ella, the general secretary at UVW, said: “Harrods might claim to be a very different organisation but that is not the experience of many of our members who have now chosen to speak up.

“If Harrods continues to refuse to engage with UVW and our members – their employees – we will be left with no choice but to ballot them, yet again, for industrial action.”

It comes after new allegations about Fayed, who died last year at the age of 94, were published by the BBC on Friday.

More than 20 women claimed they were sexually assaulted by the billionaire and five of those said they were raped.

The women, who worked at Harrods from the late 1980s to the 2000s, said assaults were carried out at the company’s offices, in Fayed’s London apartment or on foreign trips, often at the Ritz hotel in Paris.

In the expose, the BBC claimed that Harrods not only failed to intervene but also helped cover up allegations against Fayed.

Maria Mulla, another barrister representing the victims, revealed that Fayed’s former head of security told a victim that she might meet with an “accident” after she reported being assaulted by Fayed to Harrods.

Ms Mulla said: “One woman that we represent was sexually assaulted, and she had the bravery and courage to raise this in a formal written complaint to Harrods.

“On the same day of making this written complaint, the head of security John Macnamara contacted her and said, ‘You are a girl alone in London, someone could jump out the bushes at you, or you could have a sudden accident.’”

The victim was told to write a second letter contradicting her initial claims and Ms Mulla said she “did as she was told because she was absolutely petrified”.

The barrister also said that they are now investigating other companies owned by Fayed after they were made aware of allegations against him “at other places of work”, such as women who were employed by the Ritz.

The press conference, held by the legal team featured in the BBC documentary Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, also featured one of the survivors who described Fayed as “clever and highly manipulative”, saying he behaved like a “father figure” to trick his young employees.

Natacha, who was 19 at the time, added that the former Harrods chairman would urge her to “‘call me papa’” and said that he “preyed on the most vulnerable”.

‘A man who really was a monster’

“It feels good to change the legacy of a man who really was a monster,” she said.

At the press conference on Friday morning, Mr Armstrong urged the department store to ensure the victims were properly compensated.

The barrister said: “We are here to say publicly and to the world, or Harrods in front of the world, that it is time that they took responsibility, and it is time that they set matters right, and that is something they should do as soon as possible.”

He added: “They need to face up to accept the responsibility that they have full culpability for the abuse of these women.”

Gloria Allred, the American attorney who has specialised in women’s rights for more than four decades, told the press conference Harrods was a “toxic, unsafe and abusive environment” under Fayed’s chairmanship.

She said: “The allegations against Mohammed Fayed include serial rape, attempted rape, sexual battery, and sexual abuse of minors. They involved doctors administering invasive gynaecological exams as a condition of employment for some of the employees who were targeted by Mohammed Fayed for sexual abuse.

“The allegations also include the unauthorised disclosure to Mohammed Al Fayed of the examination results of employees he targeted for sexual abuse.

“Underneath the Harrods glitz and glamour was a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment.”

Mr Fayed sold Harrods to the Qatari royal family in 2010 in a deal reportedly worth £1.5 billion.

The lawyer, who has represented the victims of Weinstein, Epstein and R. Kelly, added: “Al Fayed’s legacy was to pray upon, denigrate, humiliate and abuse female employees for his own sexual gratification.”

She called him the “epitome of a serial sexual abuser” and said that this “is a teaching moment for Harrods” and for corporations all over the world.

Mr Armstong said his team was now working on behalf of 37 alleged victims.

Another barrister, Bruce Drummond, added that the scandal is “one of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation” that he and “perhaps the world has ever seen”.

He said: “It was absolutely horrific and I can’t stress that word enough.”

Mr Drummond said some of Mr Al Fayed’s accusers have ended up in “psychiatric care” and are unable to form relationships decades later because of the “lifelong” trauma.

He said: “This should never have happened and Harrods must accept responsibility for the damage these women have suffered.”

Ms Murra warned that the lawyers are aware of more harrowing accounts of assault than the ones revealed by the BBC, saying they are “the worst sexual assaults that you can imagine”.

Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, a Harrods spokesman said: “Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”

Four Russian soldiers have been charged by the Kremlin with killing a US citizen.

Russell Bentley, 64, who fought alongside pro-Putin rebels in eastern Ukraine, was tortured and murdered by Russian servicemen, Kremlin investigators said on Friday.

Bentley, a self-described communist from Dallas, Texas, went missing in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in April and was later found dead.

Nicknamed “Texas”, he regularly appeared on pro-Kremlin social media channels, backing Moscow’s full-scale military offensive.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which looks into major crimes, identified the suspects as Russian Armed Forces servicemen Vitaly Vansyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin and Andrei Iordanov.

It is a rare instance of Russia accusing active soldiers in Ukraine – who are glorified at home – of committing crimes.

According to investigators, three of the men tortured Bentley on April 8, leading to his death. Vansyatsky and Agaltsev then allegedly blew up a car with Bentley’s body inside and ordered Bazhin to conceal the remains.

The men face charges including abuse of power resulting in death, desecration and concealment of a body.

The motive behind Bentley’s murder is not known, but allies of the deceased soldier have speculated that he may have been mistaken for a spy. Bentley’s wife, Lyudmila, previously claimed that Russian soldiers from a tank battalion abducted him.

She had issued an appeal to Vladimir Putin to help find her husband’s remains.

Following Bentley’s death, the Vostok Battalion, of which he was a member, released a statement on Telegram calling for “those who killed Russell Bentley” to be handed an “exemplary punishment”.

Bentley was a long-time supporter of the Kremlin, having joined pro-Russia separatists in 2014 to fight against Ukrainian forces following the occupation of Crimea.

He fought for the Donetsk-based Vostok battalion between 2014 and 2017 and became a Russian citizen in 2021.

Bentley is understood to have served in the US military as a young adult before returning to civilian life and mounting a third-party bid for the Senate in Minnesota.

He is believed to have served time in prison in the US for trafficking cannabis.

When Donald Trump appears on stage in North Carolina on Saturday, he will be missing his usual sidekick.

Just two days before Trump’s trip to the state, which is one of the closest of this election cycle, the gubernatorial campaign of one of his closest allies was thrown into disarray.   

Shortly after 3pm on Thursday, a story by CNN alleged that Mark Robinson described himself as a “black Nazi” on the amateur black erotic website “Nude Africa”. 

In the posts, it is claimed that he revealed his love of pornography featuring transgender actors and said: “Slavery is not bad. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few.”

The comments were allegedly posted between 2008 and 2012, using a username that Mr Robinson has used on other social media sites, and disclosing his location to other users of the forum.

The former president had described Mr Robinson, who is currently North Carolina’s Republican lieutenant governor, as a friend who was “better than Martin Luther King”.

His proximity to Trump had also positioned him as one of the Republican Party’s rising stars, despite previous inflammatory comments that some Americans with “evil intent…need killing,” argued that transgender Americans should “find a corner outside somewhere” to go to the toilet, and alleged use of anti-Semitic language. 

He later said his comment about killing some voters was a reference to the Second World War and had been taken out of context.

Given those comments, it is perhaps not surprising that the media would go digging in Mr Robinson’s past.

But when the story dropped, it could not have been a worse time for Mr Robinson – or Trump.

Firstly, the story came just two days before Trump’s visit to Wilmington on Saturday, where he is campaigning in the aftermath of polls that showed he is just 0.3 points ahead of Kamala Harris.

It was also just hours before the deadline for Mr Robinson to withdraw from the race, which he has refused to do. 

The North Carolina GOP is now stuck with an embattled candidate, in a race that previously looked extremely close.   

The former president said on Friday that Mr Robinson will not join Trump on stage, despite their previously strong relationship and his appearance at previous Trump rallies.

At a rally in March, Trump compared him repeatedly to Martin Luther King Jr, describing him as “better than Martin Luther King” and like the civil rights activist “on steroids”.

He has referred to him as “outstanding” and an “incredible gentleman,” bringing him into the loose and transient court of “Trump World”.

Since the story broke, the Harris campaign has wasted no time in pointing out Mr Robinson’s links to Trump, releasing an attack ad on Friday that replayed the former president’s old comments about him.

The campaign is planning a dozen billboards in North Carolina that make the link explicit to voters, who will cast ballots in both the presidential and gubernatorial race in November.

Mr Robinson has claimed that the story was deliberately released at a damaging time for his campaign, accusing his Democratic rival Josh Stein and CNN of colluding to sink his chances of the governorship. 

He denied that he had made the comments, but did not offer any further explanation for them.

Mr Stein’s campaign said Mr Robinson was “completely unfit to be Governor” but did not comment on the accusation it had worked with CNN on the story.

Others said that Mr Robinson’s team had failed in their political “opsec” – the process of protecting a candidate including by sanitising damaging information about them from the internet.

Political campaigns generally collect “attack” stories about their opponents during an election cycle, and often choose to release them at the most opportune moment for their own political prospects.

In an attempt to get ahead of the story, Mr Robinson released a video before it was published.

“Let me reassure you,” he said. “The things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson.”

He told supporters he would stay in the race, and blamed his rival Mr Stein for the story, which he described as “salacious tabloid trash”.

Whatever the origins of the story – it, and its unfortunate timing for Mr Robinson – could have implications for the presidential election.

Although Mr Robinson has made controversial comments before, the latest tranche of his alleged posts are likely to outrage his conservative base.

A post in which he allegedly said that “tranny on girl porn” was “f—ing hot” is in direct conflict with his statements on transgender rights, which he has strongly opposed.

Another series of messages, in which he allegedly described “peeping” on a woman in the shower, stands in stark contrast to his public image as a man of faith.

North Carolina has emerged as one of the tightest and most interesting battlegrounds of the election.

It is the only one of the seven swing states that voted for Trump in 2020, by a margin of 1.35 per cent. 

Now, an average of polls in the state shows Ms Harris is just 0.3 points behind him.

Ms Harris winning in North Carolina would deny Trump 16 votes in the electoral college – making his route to 270 much more challenging.

She has placed Roy Cooper, the state’s outgoing governor, at the centre of her campaign and booked him to introduce her at the Democratic National Convention last month.

A significant hit to GOP votes in the state, or some Republicans staying home in disgust at the alleged comments, could hand Ms Harris North Carolina and cost Trump the election.

In April 1983, a truck loaded with 2,000lb of explosives sped through the gate to the US embassy in Beirut and detonated as it struck the building.

The blast instantly turned the embassy to rubble and killed 63 people, including 52 American and Lebanese employees.

One of the men behind the attack was Ibrahim Aqil, a top Hezbollah commander with a $7 million US bounty on his head, who has been killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut, according to Israel’s military.

Aqil, who served as head of the militia’s Radwan special forces, was reportedly killed on Friday along with 10 senior commanders of the elite unit in a Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs.

Aqil became second-in-command to Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, after the killing of Fuad Shukr in a separate strike on Beirut earlier this year. His death threatened to escalate tensions between Hezbollah and Israel into a full-blown war.

The new strike – a visible display of both Israel’s intelligence capabilities and capacity to repeatedly target the group’s most senior command – once again reignited fears of a major escalation.

Aqil, who often used aliases and is believed to be in his 60s, sat on Hezbollah’s highest military body, known as the Jihad Council, and was one of the group’s veterans. 

Dr Carmit Valensi, senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, told The Telegraph: “Aqil was a very significant figure in Hezbollah, his contributions have helped shape the group’s security and military strategies.”

His experience and loyalty to Nasrallah made him “indispensable” to the group’s decision-making and operational integrity, she said. 

“He was less visible than other top figures, but no less crucial.”

The Hezbollah chief “suffered a major blow by losing Fuad Shakr and Ibrahim Aqil in such a short and crucial time when he needs his inner circle”, Dr Valensi explained. 

Hezbollah will feel they must respond “dramatically and significantly”.

She added: “This is definitely the ‘new phase in war’ [that] Israeli officials declared this week.”

According to the US state department, Aqil was a “principal member” of the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJU), a Lebanese Shia militia known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War. 

The terror group claimed responsibility for bombings the US Embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983. Among the 63 killed were eight CIA officers, making it the single greatest loss of lives in the agency’s history.

Six months later, the IJU carried out a second suicide bombing on the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American personnel. Seconds later, a second bomber killed 58 French paratroopers and six Lebanese civilians.

Washington accused Aqil of helping to mastermind both attacks, along with the abduction of American and German hostages in Lebanon. 

It listed him as a specially designated global terrorist in 2019, placing the $7 million bounty on his head.

Born in a village in Lebanon’s Beqaa valley sometime around 1960, Aqil joined Amal, another big Lebanese Shi’ite political movement, before switching to Hezbollah as a founding member.

Hezbollah was established in the 1980s to battle Israeli forces that had invaded and occupied Lebanon. 

Its cohort of founding operatives helped turn the group from a small militia into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political organisation, pushing Israel from its occupation of the south in 2000.

Friday afternoon’s strike was the third assassination in the Lebanese capital blamed on Israel since October, when Hezbollah began cross-border clashes with the country in support of Hamas over the Gaza war.

Israel announced it was shifting its war objectives to its northern border with Lebanon this week.

Soon after, thousands of pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices belonging to Hezbollah fighters simultaneously detonated in twin attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 and wounding over 3,000.

Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, vowed that Israel would face retribution for the blasts. 

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, declared Hezbollah will pay an “increasing price” for attacks in northern Israel.

There was possibly only one group absent from Oprah Winfrey’s love-in with Kamala Harris that was live-streamed to millions of homes across the US on Thursday night.

Cat Ladies For Kamala and Win With Black Women were prominent backers; so too White Dudes For Harris and Queers For Kamala.

But there was no sign of Duchesses For Kamala or Sussexes For Harris.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are, The Telegraph can disclose, deliberately going out of their way to stay out of the US elections.

This goes some way to explain why the Duchess, despite her close ties to Winfrey, the queen of US television, did not add her endorsement to Thursday’s event, a huge show of support for the Democratic contender in the tightest of presidential races.

Other major celebrities did, including such Hollywood royalty as Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock and Bryan Cranston.

Winfrey was a prominent guest at the wedding of Meghan to Prince Harry in 2018 and hosted the devastating interview in which the Duchess accused a senior member of the Royal family of commenting on her child’s skin colour, in candid comments that sealed their Californian exile and effectively declared war on the Palace.

Rumoured political ambitions

Another reason why the Duchess might have been expected to attend is that for some time there have been reports of her political ambitions, all of them denied. The rumour mill has even gone so far as to suggest that the Duchess made tentative inquiries to replace Ms Harris as senator in California when she became vice-president. The claim has been branded “implausible” and “ridiculous” by sources close to the Duchess.

Four years ago, the Duchess spent an hour on a direct call with Gavin Newsom, the golden state’s charismatic governor and an ally of Ms Harris, to discuss her arrival in Montecito, the wealthy town on the fringes of Santa Barbara that is now home to the Duke and Duchess.

The call was made in mid-October, two weeks before the 2020 US election and at a particularly sensitive time. The Biden-Harris triumph left a Senate seat vacant that under convention was in the gift of Mr Newsom to fill. He was under pressure to replace Ms Harris, at the time the only black female senator, with a candidate of the same sex and ethnicity. In the end he plumped for Alex Padilla, the first Latino to represent California.

Details of the call between Mr Newsom and the Duchess of Sussex remain private but it is thought the Duchess, a former actress in the US hit show Suits, was keen to let the Democratic governor know she was supportive of him. The Duke was also on the call, The Telegraph understands. It is not clear who initiated the call and what precisely was discussed but it likely would have included discussions about security and the logistics of having a branch of the Royal family in California.

However, fast-forward to 2024 and the Duke and Duchess are keeping well out of the political fray. Their only foray in this election cycle was to issue a statement via their charity the Archewell Foundation, encouraging unregistered voters to make sure they were not disenfranchised.

The statement issued on National Voter Registration Day declared: “At the Archewell Foundation, we recognise that civic engagement, no matter one’s political party, is at the heart of a more just and equitable world.”

It was intriguing. First, the statement was not issued directly by the couple but by their foundation. Second, for a couple who are so often in the spotlight, there was no accompanying video. Vanity Fair, the US magazine which is considered friendly by the Duke and Duchess, even went so far as to report that the Sussexes “didn’t participate in this week’s activity” and that instead the letter had been organised by Archewell “staffers” who had “got together for a nonpartisan letter-writing campaign to urge people across the country to exercise their right to vote”.

The contrast with four years ago is marked. In September 2020, when Donald Trump was going toe-to-toe with Joe Biden, the Duke and Duchess appeared on camera with a personal appeal to American voters to register in order to “reject hate speech, misinformation and online negativity”. Trump reacted badly. “I’m not a fan,” he remarked of the Duchess before wishing Prince Harry “a lot of luck”. In spring this year, Trump warned that “appropriate action” should be taken if it turned out the Duke had lied on his US visa application over taking cocaine, magic mushrooms and marijuana in his youth.

The video also caused genuine outrage in the UK because members of the Royal family are not supposed to dabble in politics and are never allowed to show any kind of allegiance (at the time, the Duke and Duchess insisted they were not endorsing Joe Biden and simply railing against “hate” and “misinformation”.)

The couple’s reticence to enter the political fray might well be understandable in light of a possible Trump return to the White House. He is not known for being forgiving.

This time, the couple have let it be known they will “remain nonpartisan” and they had no involvement with Winfrey’s “Unite for America”, a live stream event billed by Ms Harris’s advisers as the “big moment to try to reach a broad cross-section of persuadable voters”.

The Duchess has moved on too. Four years ago, it seemed to the world that she and her Prince were taking on the Royal family, setting up an alternative to the House of Windsor on the West Coast. The couple had made a hasty “Megxit” to escape the attentions of the British press and public, feeling unloved by the rest of the Royal family. 

Duchess’s new jam

The Duchess now has her own business interests to pursue and the couple need to make money to pay for a lifestyle that includes hugely expensive round-the-clock security that the British taxpayer no longer funds.

Her American Riviera Orchard brand, soft-launched in the summer, will promote a “domestic idyll” through the sale of everything from jams, cutlery and nut butters to place mats and cookbooks. 

It is possible that in trying to make the business venture work, the last thing the Duchess would want to do is appear divisive by backing one political party over another. Meanwhile the Duke, according to reports, is trying to patch things up with London. The last thing he wants is a further political row to muddy those waters.

And then there’s the distinct possibility that the Democrats just don’t want the Sussexes’ support. The Duchess is a figure who is both loved and hated. In a tight election, Ms Harris cannot afford to lose voters, however unlikely that might be as a consequence of an endorsement from the Californian exiles. And then there’s this from a Democratic strategist in California, who knows the governor and the party machine there. “With all due respect to Meghan Markle,” said the source, “given the star power that we have in California, she’s kind of in the minor ranks of them to be honest.” Ouch.

More than 100 women have come forward after former Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed was accused of the “serial” sexual abuse of young women who worked at the department store.

 About one hundred enquiries have been made to a legal team since a BBC documentary aired on Thursday evening about the claims, according to one of the barristers representing 37 of the late billionaire’s accusers. 

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, barrister Bruce Drummond said the cases were “rapidly evolving and expanding every day”.

It comes during continued fallout from the broadcaster’s exposé, in which more than 20 female former employees of the luxury store have spoken out with allegations of assault and physical violence over a 25-year-period.

On Friday, it was revealed that one woman who accused Fayed of sexual assault was allegedly warned she might “have an accident” by his bodyguard. 

After making a formal complaint to Harrods, the woman is said to have received a note from the late John Macnamara, a former Metropolitan Police officer, saying she must rescind her allegation.

“You are a girl alone in London, someone could jump out the bushes at you, or you could have a sudden accident,” the note said.

The allegation came as a lawyer representing dozens of women who claim to have been abused by Fayed insisted Harrods must take responsibility for the years of sexual abuse allegedly committed by the “monster”.

Dean Armstrong KC, a barrister who is representing some of the tycoon’s reported victims, told a press conference that the case “combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein”.

He said: “I have many years of practice… I have never seen a case as horrific as this.”

Addressing how the case combined elements of three of the most high-profile abuse scandals, he said: “Savile because in this case, as in that, the institution, we say, knew about the behaviour.

“Epstein because in that case, as in this, there was a procurement system in place to source the women and girls – as you know, there are some very young victims.

“And Weinstein, because it was a person at the very top of the organisation who was abusing his power.

“We will say plainly, Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster.”

Michael Ward, the managing director of Harrods, was under pressure from staff who rubbished claims that the organisation had changed since Fayed’s alleged actions had taken place.

Harrods said in a statement that the company was “a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Mr Fayed”, and that it “seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything [they] do”.

United Voices of the World (UWV), a union that represents low-paid and migrant workers, said organisers wrote to Harrods demanding an urgent meeting to discuss its members’ concerns, but claimed it had been refused.

On Friday, UVW accused Harrods’ current bosses of fostering “a culture of secrecy and fear” in the workplace.

In a statement, it said: “The imbalance of power within the company makes it impossible for workers to be sure that any concerns they have will be acknowledged and dealt with accordingly.

“The general feeling among Harrods’ workers is that we are at the bottom of the company’s priorities, forced into submission with the odds stacked against us.”

They pointed out that Mr Ward, who has been in the post since 2005, oversaw the luxury retailer both while it was under Fayed’s ownership and afterwards.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of Mr Ward.

A Harrods spokesman said: “UVW is not a recognised union by Harrods and therefore we do not engage with this organisation on our policies. We work with Unite as our recognised union.”

Petros Ella, the general secretary at UVW, said: “Harrods might claim to be a very different organisation but that is not the experience of many of our members who have now chosen to speak up.

“If Harrods continues to refuse to engage with UVW and our members – their employees – we will be left with no choice but to ballot them, yet again, for industrial action.”

It comes after new allegations about Fayed, who died last year at the age of 94, were published by the BBC on Friday.

More than 20 women claimed they were sexually assaulted by the billionaire and five of those said they were raped.

The women, who worked at Harrods from the late 1980s to the 2000s, said assaults were carried out at the company’s offices, in Fayed’s London apartment or on foreign trips, often at the Ritz hotel in Paris.

In the expose, the BBC claimed that Harrods not only failed to intervene but also helped cover up allegations against Fayed.

Maria Mulla, another barrister representing the victims, revealed that Fayed’s former head of security told a victim that she might meet with an “accident” after she reported being assaulted by Fayed to Harrods.

Ms Mulla said: “One woman that we represent was sexually assaulted, and she had the bravery and courage to raise this in a formal written complaint to Harrods.

“On the same day of making this written complaint, the head of security John Macnamara contacted her and said, ‘You are a girl alone in London, someone could jump out the bushes at you, or you could have a sudden accident.’”

The victim was told to write a second letter contradicting her initial claims and Ms Mulla said she “did as she was told because she was absolutely petrified”.

The barrister also said that they are now investigating other companies owned by Fayed after they were made aware of allegations against him “at other places of work”, such as women who were employed by the Ritz.

The press conference, held by the legal team featured in the BBC documentary Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, also featured one of the survivors who described Fayed as “clever and highly manipulative”, saying he behaved like a “father figure” to trick his young employees.

Natacha, who was 19 at the time, added that the former Harrods chairman would urge her to “‘call me papa’” and said that he “preyed on the most vulnerable”.

‘A man who really was a monster’

“It feels good to change the legacy of a man who really was a monster,” she said.

At the press conference on Friday morning, Mr Armstrong urged the department store to ensure the victims were properly compensated.

The barrister said: “We are here to say publicly and to the world, or Harrods in front of the world, that it is time that they took responsibility, and it is time that they set matters right, and that is something they should do as soon as possible.”

He added: “They need to face up to accept the responsibility that they have full culpability for the abuse of these women.”

Gloria Allred, the American attorney who has specialised in women’s rights for more than four decades, told the press conference Harrods was a “toxic, unsafe and abusive environment” under Fayed’s chairmanship.

She said: “The allegations against Mohammed Fayed include serial rape, attempted rape, sexual battery, and sexual abuse of minors. They involved doctors administering invasive gynaecological exams as a condition of employment for some of the employees who were targeted by Mohammed Fayed for sexual abuse.

“The allegations also include the unauthorised disclosure to Mohammed Al Fayed of the examination results of employees he targeted for sexual abuse.

“Underneath the Harrods glitz and glamour was a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment.”

Mr Fayed sold Harrods to the Qatari royal family in 2010 in a deal reportedly worth £1.5 billion.

The lawyer, who has represented the victims of Weinstein, Epstein and R. Kelly, added: “Al Fayed’s legacy was to pray upon, denigrate, humiliate and abuse female employees for his own sexual gratification.”

She called him the “epitome of a serial sexual abuser” and said that this “is a teaching moment for Harrods” and for corporations all over the world.

Mr Armstong said his team was now working on behalf of 37 alleged victims.

Another barrister, Bruce Drummond, added that the scandal is “one of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation” that he and “perhaps the world has ever seen”.

He said: “It was absolutely horrific and I can’t stress that word enough.”

Mr Drummond said some of Mr Al Fayed’s accusers have ended up in “psychiatric care” and are unable to form relationships decades later because of the “lifelong” trauma.

He said: “This should never have happened and Harrods must accept responsibility for the damage these women have suffered.”

Ms Murra warned that the lawyers are aware of more harrowing accounts of assault than the ones revealed by the BBC, saying they are “the worst sexual assaults that you can imagine”.

Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, a Harrods spokesman said: “Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”

The Israeli military is investigating a “disturbing” video showing its troops shoving what appear to be bodies off a roof during a raid in the occupied West Bank.

The videos, which began circulating online on Thursday, appeared to show three soldiers on top of a building in the town of Qabatiya, dragging, throwing and in one case kicking bodies off the edge.

Zakaria Zakarneh, the uncle of one of the dead men, told Reuters he saw Israeli soldiers go to the roof after the Palestinians were killed.

“They tried to move the bodies down with a bulldozer but it didn’t work so they threw them from the second floor down to the ground,” Mr Zakarneh said.

“I was in pain, very sad and angry I was unable to do anything,” he added.

The Israeli military said the incident was “serious” and was not in keeping with its values.

On Friday, the White House described the footage as “deeply disturbing” and said it had demanded an explanation from Israel.

“We’ve seen that video, and we found it deeply disturbing. If it’s proven to be authentic, it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behaviour by professional soldiers,” said John Kirby, a US national security council spokesman.

In a separate statement, the Israeli military said that on Thursday its soldiers had killed seven militants in gun battles and an airstrike in Qabatiya.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces.

Thousands have been arrested in the raids that have regularly seen gun battles break out between security forces and Palestinian militants, as well as attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian communities.

Israeli troops or settlers have allegedly killed at least 682 Palestinians in the West Bank since October, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The Murdoch family’s Australian property business has boosted its offer for Britain’s Rightmove in a deal worth nearly £5.9bn.

REA Group has improved its bid to nearly 750p a share, according to the Financial Times. The fresh approach was 7pc higher than its original offer for Rightmove, which was rejected earlier this month.

The continued pursuit comes as News Corp, which owns REA, seeks to further diversify its business beyond media as patriarch Rupert Murdoch hands over the reins to his eldest son, Lachlan.

Rightmove rejected the initial approach as “opportunistic” and some investors have also spoken out to criticise the structure of the offer, which is based on a mix of cash and shares in the combined group.

Iain McCombie, a fund manager at Baillie Gifford, said last week: “Rightmove is the cheapest property portal in the world by a margin. REA Group noticed that and made a bid. We’re not going to sell that cheaply because it is a unique business and has a dominance there in this market”.

Sean Kealy, an analyst at Panmure Liberum, said earlier this month the Murdochs would have to pay a premium of 60pc to be successful, which would value Rightmove at roughly £7.1bn.

Under the City’s takeover code, REA has until September 30 to make a firm offer or walk away.

REA and Rightmove were approached for comment.

Melbourne-based REA, which has a market value of A$26bn (£13bn), owns a number of property brands including realestate.com. News Corp has a controlling stake in the company.

News Corp was previously in discussions to sell its US real estate business, Move Inc, in a deal worth a reported $3bn (£2.3bn), but the talks fell through.

That prompted calls from activist investor Starboard Value for the Murdochs to spin off REA. Starboard this month stepped up its assault, submitting a proposal that would end the family’s control of News Corp.

It comes as the Murdoch family’s 93-year-old patriarch tries to alter the terms of a trust to hand sole control to Lachlan. However, this has triggered a backlash from his other children, with a courtroom battle over the matter currently playing out behind closed doors in a courtroom in Nevada.

A diplomatic row has erupted over plans to include international schools in Labour’s private school VAT raid.

Diplomats are calling for an exemption for bilingual schools, arguing that they “are not typical private schools” since their pupils’ needs cannot be readily met in the state sector.

The French embassy expressed concerns to ministers warning that the tax raid would “adversely affect” French schools.

The Telegraph understands the German and Spanish embassies are also in talks with the Government over the VAT plans, which are set to come into force from Jan 1 2025.

In a statement, the French embassy said that while it “does not seek to interfere in the legislative process”, it hopes the Government will “take into account the very distinctive nature” of the 11 French schools in Britain before implementing the policy.

It said: “These schools are overseen by the French ministry of national education and follow the French national curriculum, preparing pupils for French national exams. As such, they are not part of the British exam system.

“Moreover, these schools receive significant public funding from the French government and an important state-funded scholarship programme is in place for French families meeting social criteria.

“They are not typical private schools. As the decision to impose VAT would adversely affect French schools, we have been in contact with the British Government and hope that the implementation of the reform will take into account the very distinctive nature of these schools.”

French schools operating out of Britain are part-funded by the French government, which also offers financial aid to families from France.

Labour’s VAT plan for private schools applies at the “place of supply”, meaning it will still be charged on bilingual schools operating in the UK.

The tax will not apply to UK schools operating overseas, such as the British School of Paris.

Affordability 

The French embassy said it has emphasised to the UK Government that the “very purpose” of Elysee funding for its schools was to “ensure they remain affordable to families abroad, to the benefit of our economic and human ties”.

Vincent Caure, a deputy in Emmanuel Macron’s private office, said he was also “deeply concerned” by the VAT plans.

Mr Caure told The Telegraph plans to hit private schools with 20 per cent VAT “risk increasing the bill for families when they have no alternative”.

“I am deeply concerned about the impact that the introduction of VAT could have on public schools that teach in a foreign language, whether they are part of the French network or other foreign institutions,” he said.

“While I understand the British Government’s intention, I would like to draw attention to the undesirable effects on these specific establishments, which cater in particular for foreign children wishing to be educated in their native language.

“It is essential that French schools are excluded from this scheme by granting them VAT exemption.”

Mr Caure suggested Labour’s move to tax private schools from January “will make London less attractive as a place to live for some French and Franco-British families”.

“For many families, the choice of London is also based on the knowledge that they have access to excellent French-language education. If we restrict access, we jeopardise the attractiveness of London and the United Kingdom,” he said.

The French MP added that while a change of government in the UK signalled a chance to reset ties between France and Britain, “imposing VAT reform on [French overseas schools] would not be in line with this drive to renew relations”.

It could prove a growing headache in efforts by Sir Keir Starmer to refresh the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with Paris. The Prime Minister met with Mr Macron last month, where the pair agreed to deepen ties over defence, security, migration and energy.

The Lycée Charles de Gaulle in Kensington, London is the largest French school in the UK, with around 3,000 pupils in its primary and secondary schools.

In a letter to Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, seen by The Telegraph, the school warned that imposing VAT on bilingual schools would have a “disastrous financial impact on our families”.

Karen Bargues, the president of the school’s parents’ association, said: “Specific programmes, including preparation for French qualifications such as the brevet and the baccalaureate, are not available in British state schools. This means that parents have no choice but to turn to an establishment such as the Lycée.

“The introduction of VAT on tuition fees at an institution such as ours would have a disastrous financial impact on our families. Such an increase in costs would force many parents to withdraw their children from our school, not by choice, but because of insurmountable financial difficulties.”

One parent at the school, which charges up to £17,000 a year in fees, echoed warnings that hitting bilingual schools with VAT would drive families away from Britain.

“People are here to make business work better and build relationships. To be honest, relations on both sides of the Channel will be affected,” they told The Telegraph.

“The UK Government says it wants to get closer and align with Europe, but this is contradictory. It’ll impact relations. The French have been trying to negotiate but they’re getting nothing, there’s been no movement.”

VAT exemption expansion

It comes amid mounting pressure for the Government to expand a list of exemptions from its VAT plans, after ministers unveiled a similar relief clause for children with severe special educational needs.

The Telegraph revealed last week that the British Army is currently consulting military families amid concern they could be priced out of private schools by the tax changes.

Military families were asked to share their views by Sept 23 in a poll drawn up by the Army’s policy team, which said it recognised that many families “depend on private schools to provide stability to their children whilst they meet the day-to-day demands of service life”.

Around 4,700 children from military and diplomatic families currently receive taxpayer-funded support to help with private education.

David Walker, the director of the Boarding Schools’ Association, said on Friday that any decision not to grant military families an exemption from the tax raid was “beyond the pale”.

“We do not believe it would be fair to place an extra financial burden on parents whose jobs serving our nation means their children need to be educated at boarding schools,” he said.

“We do not believe there should be a tax on children sleeping at all, but taxing families who are actively serving in the military for providing a stable term-time home to their children is beyond the pale.”

A spokesman for the German embassy said: “The German Embassy in London is in contact with the UK Government on this issue.”

The Spanish embassy was approached for comment.

A government spokesman said: “We want to ensure all children have the best chance in life to succeed. Ending tax breaks on private schools will help to raise the revenue needed to fund our education priorities for next year, such as recruiting 6,500 new teachers.”

Something interesting is happening at Gucci. And I don’t just mean the presence of three formidable blondes – Debbie Harry, Kirsten Dunst and Julia Garner – in the front row.

The markets are beating the fashion chatterati. While the latter have been in the main lukewarm about newcomer Sabato De Sarno’s collections, his power to shape fashion in general is proving quite a force. Take the popularity this autumn of burgundy, patent and, often, burgundy patent – you can see it all over the place, from Zara to Bash. And it all kicked off with de Sarno’s first collection for Gucci a year ago. Then there are his lace-trimmed leather slip dresses, versions of which I spotted in Marks & Spencer’s showroom a couple of weeks ago.

Influencing the high street isn’t quite the same as waking up your own market: Gucci’s decline in revenue this year alone has been vertigo-inducing – a 20 per cent drop in sales recorded in the first quarter of 2024. But insiders have long argued this isn’t De Sarno’s fault. For reasons beyond most people’s ken, it has taken an inordinately long time for his collections to reach Gucci’s stores. The items that aren’t selling are old stock.

Given the brand’s various travails – and the slowdown in sales that’s affecting many other fashion labels – De Sarno seemed in high spirits after his spring/summer show on Friday. And yes, he said backstage, he had noticed how widely some of his ideas had already been picked up by others. While that’s gratifying, his priority, he says, is fleshing out a wardrobe of what he calls “casual grandeur”. Some of it’s probably a bit too grand for cash-strapped Europeans, but you can already see Middle Eastern and Chinese clients working their winter 2024 Gucci casual grandeur in the front row. 

For anyone still mystified, Casual Grandeur comes down to easy shapes and shiny luxury workmanship. Slinky white or black crepe floor-length dresses with cut-outs looked back to the peak of the Tom Ford for Gucci era. De Sarno added sculpted metal collars that echo the shape of the handles on Gucci’s top-handled heritage Bamboo bags – the one Grace Kelly used to carry. 

Talking of that Gucci classic, De Sarno has designed an even dinkier, East-West version, replacing the bamboo handle with Perspex or metal. Small bags go down a treat in South East Asia. He’s not designing in an ivory tower. 

From a commercial point of view, as well as an aesthetic one, mining the Tom Ford era isn’t a bad idea – from a distance of 20 years most of it has aged well and Gen Z love nostalgia. As seems increasingly apparent, we all do. 

But De Sarno has added his own touches. Coats are lavishly beaded, or in neons and piped with leather. Jackets are cropped, often blouson-shaped or cut close to the torso. There are lots of them. 

Separates are well and truly back at Gucci, along with co-ords – in chocolate or black leather, this time tooled. 

Trenches and parkas sweep the floor and, as elsewhere, there are silver mirrored dresses and separates for those Gatsby-style parties someone, somewhere is still throwing (probably in India).

It was bright, feel feel-good, with a lot that will appeal to red carpet stylists. Jessica Chastain, Dakota Johnson and Solange Knowles were there checking it out in person. Did anyone say all this is really about selling a whole bunch of accessories? If so, there are plenty to choose from: small, patterned, Jackie bags, clutches, slim loafer-boots with Gucci snaffles and high-heeled Mary Janes. If De Sarno doesn’t finally nudge those markets upwards, it won’t be for the want of trying.

More from the show…

New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens has been freed from more than 18 months in captivity in Indonesia’s Papua, the Indonesian police said in a statement on Saturday.

The NZ government said Mr Mehrtens was “safe and well”, and had spoken to family members.

His release came after intense diplomatic efforts by Wellington and Jakarta. Rebels had demanded Indonesia recognise Papuan independence in return for his freedom.

An armed faction of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), led by Egianus Kogoya, kidnapped Mr Mehrtens on February 7, 2023, after he landed a small commercial plane in the remote, mountainous area of Nduga.

Mr Mehrtens was freed and picked up by a joint team in Nduga Regency and was undergoing health check-ups and a physiological examination in Timika regency, the police said.

Mr Mehrtens was working for Indonesian airline Susi Air when he was snatched by rebels at Nduga airport in the restive region on February 7 last year.

“Today we have picked up pilot Phillip who is in good health and we flew him from Nduga to Timika,” Faizal Ramadhani, head of a special unit formed to handle rebels in Papua, said in a statement, agencies reported.

The released hostage was then given medical and psychological checks before he was flown to Papua’s city of Timika.

Mr Mehrtens was providing vital air links and supplies to remote communities at the time of his abduction by rebels from the West Papua National Liberation Army.

Indonesia maintains a heavy military presence in resource-rich but underdeveloped Papua to quell a long-running separatist insurgency.

Rebel attacks in Papua have risen in recent years and flying is the only available option to reach remote mountainous areas there.

A cat that went missing on a camping trip in Yellowstone national park has been reunited with its owners after travelling more than 800 miles home to California.

Benny and Susanne Anguiano lost their cat Rayne Beau in the trees while on holiday in June.

After searching for the cat for five days and laying out its favourite toys and treats, they decided to return home, believing they had lost him forever.

But two months later, the cat has emerged at an animal shelter in Roseville California, 800 miles away, near the couple’s home in Salinas.

In a post on Facebook, Mr Anguiano said Rayne Beau (pronounced “rainbow”) had lost 40 per cent of his body weight and had blood sugar and protein levels that were “near starvation mode”.

He was recovered by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who contacted the couple to inform them their pet had been found in the street by a local woman.

“We had to leave without him,” Mrs Anguiano told the local news outlet KSBW. “That was the hardest day because I felt like I was abandoning him.”

She said that as the couple drove away from their campsite, she saw a double rainbow that gave her hope they would see their cat again.

“We were driving along and out of nowhere, these double rainbows appear, and it just knitted it all together for me,” she said.

“Definitely microchip your cat or your pet and register the microchip online. We would have never gotten them back had that not happened.”

The couple were reunited with their cat in early August, but said they had not shared their story until now because it was “too traumatic”.

It is unknown how the cat travelled the 800 miles between the two locations, through at least two states including northern Nevada, where the climate is hot and arid during the summer.

Michael Jackson’s estate is suing a former associate who has threatened to make new allegations of sexual misconduct against the pop icon unless he is paid $213 million.

The man, who has not been named, is one of five people who threatened to accuse Jackson, who died in June 2009, aged 50, of sexually abusing them when they were children.

In 2020 they reached a $20 million settlement under which they agreed to drop the claims.

They are understood to have each received $2.8 million under the agreement in which the estate bought their life stories and paid a consulting fee.

However, ahead of the final payment of $500,000, one of the five said he was no longer prepared to abide by the deal and demanded $213 million from the estate.

His lawyers have demanded a “substantive response”, threatening to “expand the circle of knowledge” if it does not comply.

The threats come at a sensitive time for the Jackson estate.

They have been made with negotiations under way for the sale of half of his music catalogue – which at one point included the Beatles’ songs – to Sony for $600 million.

Legal battle

The legal battle has also erupted months before the planned biopic of Jackson, “Michael”, which is due to be released next April.

John Branca, the estate’s co-executor, described the claim as a blatant attempt to cash in on Jackson’s legacy with the accuser knowing that he cannot be sued for libel 15 years after the singer’s death.

The claims of sexual misconduct, which Jackson’s estate have emphatically denied, come at a time when his legacy is now worth an estimated $3 billion.

According to a newly filed arbitration claim, the Jackson estate has accused the man of having fabricated the earlier claims.

The estate, which has reported the affair to the US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, is asking the courts to compel the accuser to abide by the terms of the 2020 settlement and issue an injunction banning the publication of the fresh allegations.

For decades the quintet had defended the star’s reputation in print and in television interviews.

In a book, one wrote “Michael had never acted in any way even approximating inappropriate toward us. Michael was being attacked by liars.

“There was nothing ambiguous about the whole thing. These people were after Michael’s money. But he was innocent.”

Cleared when prosecuted

Allegations of inappropriate conduct with children were made against the star as far back as the 1990s, but he was cleared when he was prosecuted in 2005.

Since assuming responsibility for the estate, Mr Branca has worked tirelessly to protect the singer’s reputation.

However, it was sullied by a 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland” on HBO in which two men – Wade Robson and James Safechuck – claimed the star had abused them.

The five men who were involved in the 2020 settlement – described as a “business decision” by the Jackson estate – did not feature in the documentary.

Jackson is one of the most significant figures in the history of pop, having started with the family group, the Jackson 5, before soaring to stardom as a solo artist.

Thriller is still the best-selling album in history 40 years after it was released.

The Jackson estate, which was once heavily in debt, rebounded thanks to an earlier sale of part of his music catalogue and ventures including the Cirque du Soleil.

David Graham, the voice of the Daleks in Doctor Who, has died aged 99.

The English actor, who also voiced butler and chauffeur Aloysius Parker in the 1960s television series Thunderbirds, provided the robotic voice of the sci-fi antagonists in the 1960s and 1970s.

He created the distinctive speaking style of the Daleks with Peter Hawkins, another voice actor, and described their method in an interview with The Mirror in 2015.

“We adopted this staccato style, then they fed it through a synthesiser to make it more sinister,” he said.

Born into a working-class North London family, Graham was a radar mechanic for the Royal Air Force in the Second World War.

After the war, he took a job as a desk clerk but disliked it and moved to New York to join a theatre company.

On his return to the UK, he established a foothold in television and appeared on screen in the first two episodes of Doctor Who alongside William Hartnell, the first actor to play the titular character.

Voicing the villains 

He became the voice of the Daleks in 1963, voicing the villains in all four of their major appearances while Hartnell was the Doctor.

In 1965, Graham worked on Thunderbirds, the sci-fi television series that saw a secret organisation trying to save the world, in which he voiced the characters Gordon Tracy, Brains, Aloysius Parker and Kyrano.

He would reprise the role of Parker for an ITV remake of the show in 2015, called Thunderbirds Are Go!

He said at time: “I am triple-chuffed to be on board the new series… and reprising my role of dear old Parker with such a distinguished cast.”

In his later years, Graham was also the voice of Grandpa Pig in the TV series Peppa Pig, and also provided the voice for characters in Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom.

His in-person acting roles also included Coronation Street and Casualty.

‘Grand old age of 99’

The son of Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson, the TV producer Jamie Anderson said in a statement to the PA news agency he was “very sad to confirm that David has passed away at the grand old age of 99”.

He added: “Just a few weeks ago, I was with 2,000 Anderson fans at a Gerry Anderson concert in Birmingham where we sang him happy birthday – such a joyous occasion.

“And now, just a few weeks later, he’s left us. David was always kind and generous with his time and his talent. And what a talent.

“From the Daleks to Grandpa Pig and numerous voices for Anderson shows including Brains, Gordon Tracy and the iconic Parker. He will be sorely missed.”

The official account of Anderson said on X: “David was always a wonderful friend to us here at Anderson Entertainment. We will miss you dearly, David. Our thoughts are with David’s friends and family.”

More than a decade ago, the Crown Prosecution Service, then led by Sir Keir Starmer, found itself at the centre of a storm over its failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile, who used his fame to become one of the most prolific sexual predators Britain has ever known. 

This summer, the CPS came under fire once again, with former ministers criticising the body for taking more than a month to announce that it had brought charges against the BBC presenter Huw Edwards for accessing indecent images of children.

Now, the prosecutor’s failure, also during Starmer’s time at its helm, to charge Mohamed Fayed with sexual assault, has highlighted what campaigners and lawyers see as a pattern of Britain’s authorities appearing intimidated at the idea of taking on the rich and famous. The decision was highlighted this week when it emerged that dozens of women have now accused the late Harrods owner of abuse.

Fayed was interviewed by the Metropolitan Police under caution in 2008 after a 15-year-old girl told detectives she had been sexually assaulted by the then owner of the exclusive London department store. The following year, the CPS announced that no charges would be brought because there was “no realistic prospect of conviction”. 

The case has raised the spectre of Savile, the former BBC presenter, who the CPS similarly decided against prosecuting. The full extent of the allegations against both Savile and Fayed only came to light after the death of each man – in 2011 and last year respectively.  

The decision not to prosecute either Savile or Fayed occurred when Starmer was director of public prosecutions at the CPS. However, the Prime Minister and Number 10, have said that neither case crossed his desk. 

The CPS also faced criticism for not announcing the charges against Edwards. The disgraced BBC presenter was charged in June but the details only emerged in August, after the date of his first court appearance was published by Westminster magistrates. There is typically an expectation of disclosure when there is a significant public and media interest in a specific case. 

Earlier this month, Edwards avoided jail when he was given a six-month suspended sentence at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children. Kemi Badenoch branded the decision an example of  “two-tier” justice and called for an urgent overhaul of sentencing rules. At the time, the CPS said: “Decisions on charging announcements are based on operational factors and no defendant receives preferential treatment.”

In 2016, there was an inquiry into why the Labour peer Lord Janner was never put on trial despite facing allegations of abusing children that dated back decades. The scandal was branded an “establishment cover-up” by victims’ groups – although one of Janner’s accusers was revealed to be Carl Beech, himself a paedophile, who was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and of fraud in 2019. 

Janner, who died in December 2015, always maintained his innocence and was never convicted. His family continue to campaign for his name to be cleared.

But Richard Henriques, the retired judge who reviewed the case, severely criticised both the CPS and Leicestershire police for mishandling three investigations into Janner. He found that there was enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction in both 1991 and 2007. 

Henriques concluded that Janner should have been arrested and interviewed at the latter date. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) later found that police and prosecutors “appeared reluctant to fully investigate” claims against Lord Janner despite “numerous serious allegations”.

“On multiple occasions police put too little emphasis on looking for supporting evidence and shut down investigations without pursuing all outstanding inquiries,” said Prof Alexis Jay, who chaired the IICSA.

“This inquiry has brought up themes we are now extremely familiar with, such as deference to powerful individuals, the barriers to reporting faced by children and the need for institutions to have clear policies and procedures setting out how to respond to allegations of child sexual abuse.”

Richard Scorer, the head of abuse law at Slater & Gordon, believes that the UK has a problem bringing powerful wrong-doers to justice compared with, for example, the US. He cites three main reasons for this. 

The first is the UK’s notoriously strict libel laws, which he says has “a stifling effect” on victims coming forward in the first place. In the US, by contrast, those making allegations against figures such as Fayed and Savile would be afforded first amendment protections under the right to free speech. 

Several media organisations reported on allegations of sexual abuse against Fayed in the past, including Vanity Fair in 1995, ITV in 1997 and Channel 4 in 2017. Meirion Jones, a former BBC journalist whose Newsnight investigation into Savile was pulled, says the high legal bills these outlets incurred likely put others off further investigation. 

“The knowledge about what al Fayed was alleged to have done was out there in the world but the trap never sprung shut on him,” he says. “The legal bills in these cases can quickly add up to seven figures and that’s clearly a disincentive to go after those with deep pockets.” 

The second reason, according to Scorer, is that the UK’s criminal justice is crumbling after years of underfunding. Scorer says it can now take between five and six years to bring sexual assault and rape cases to trial, which is “totally unacceptable”. 

Sir Bob Neill, the former Conservative MP and chair of the Commons justice committee, agrees, but adds that the UK justice system has long had a poor record of dealing with allegations of sexual crimes of all kinds, a weakness that is further exacerbated when the perpetrator of those crimes is well-known. 

“There’s long been a concern that victims haven’t come forward because they were worried they wouldn’t be believed and clearly that concern is amplified if the alleged perpetrator is famous or rich,” says Neill. “There has been a lot of work to address this problem but there’s clearly still some way to go.” 

Scorer’s third point is that there is far more direct political accountability within the legal system in the US than in the UK. In the US, the prosecutor’s office has increasingly become a stepping stone to higher office. (Kamala Harris, for example, was previously the district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California. Both these positions are elected.)

There are definitely downsides to this system. Research suggests that this has had significant negative consequences for US criminal law, including making justice outcomes more punitive for civilians (and driving mass incarcerations) and noticeably more lax for the police.

However, it has also ensured that the powerful are more likely to be held to account for criminal actions. Prosecutors know that there is no surer route to getting their own names in the headlines than putting a famous person behind bars. 

Victims’ groups agree that the US justice system seems to be less cowed by the power of alleged perpetrators generally. The MeToo movement has resulted in a wave of high-profile cases and convictions for rape and sexual assault, including Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby. 

But whereas it makes career sense for prosecutors to charge powerful people in the US, the reverse tends to be true in the UK. “Here the calculus flips,” says Scorer. “If you go after someone famous, you’ll likely tie up huge amounts of resources and there’s a huge downside if the case fails.” 

He points out there are very limited mechanisms for holding the CPS and the police to account when they choose not to prosecute. In 2018, the Metropolitan Police lost an appeal against two rape victims, who won compensation over its handling of the case of black cab rapist John Worboys. However, the victims had to make their claim under article three of the Human Rights Act – the right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment.

“The performance of the CPS isn’t going to improve until it gets more resources and until it faces greater political accountability,” says Scorer. “We know that the CPS can fast-track certain cases if it wants but such decisions are taken in a very bureaucratic way with little or no explanation.” 

Jones argues that there might be a broader cultural problem in the UK, which is perhaps a hangover from the class system, in which people are “too willing to doff the cap” to those in power. He adds that that culture is changing but perhaps less quickly than many presume. 

Laura Paisley, a barrister at Mountford Chambers, counters that a number of famous and powerful people have been prosecuted in the UK in recent years. They include Rolf Harris and the publicist Max Clifford.

Paisley points out that such cases take a long time to investigate and that the culture may only appear to be changing more slowly in the UK than in the US because the criminal justice system is under such strain. 

However, women’s groups argue that there is also a power imbalance at play in many of these cases. “Perpetrators have long used their wealth, status and power to abuse women and girls with impunity,” says Andrea Simon, executive director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition. 

“We live in an unequal social system that puts men in a position of power relative to women and girls. Sexual violence is a consequence of this, with women and girls comprising the vast majority of victims. 

“This inequality is deeply embedded in our culture, institutions and legal systems, with wealthy perpetrators able to weaponise the law to silence victims and prevent reporting on their experiences through non-disclosure agreements and super-injunctions.”

A CPS spokesman says of Fayed: “We reviewed files of evidence presented by the police in 2009 and 2015.

“To bring a prosecution the CPS must be confident there is a realistic prospect of conviction – in each instance our prosecutors looked carefully at the evidence and concluded this wasn’t the case.”

Rachel Reeves has admitted she accepted money for clothes, as the backlash over gifts from donors threatened to overshadow the Labour Party conference this weekend.

The Chancellor has received almost £7,500 for clothing since 2023 from a friend called Juliet Rosenfeld, the widow of a Labour donor caught up in the 2006 cash for honours scandal.

It comes after it emerged that both Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, accepted thousands of pounds towards clothes from Lord Alli, the Labour donor.

The Prime Minister, Ms Rayner and Ms Reeves all made clear on Friday night that they would stop taking donations for clothes now that they were in office.

The sudden change in position, after days of Downing Street defending the Prime Minister’s stance on donations, was rushed out ahead of the party’s four-day conference in Liverpool, which was meant to be a moment of celebration after the election victory.

The decision was made after Labour figures started to express disquiet at the No 10 defence, with some MPs calling for Sir Keir to promise to take no more “freebies”.

But the Prime Minister’s new stance does not include giving up hospitality such as football tickets, indicating he will continue to have his Arsenal corporate tickets paid for by others.

There are now calls for the clothing donations to be paid back. One Labour MP told The Telegraph: “It’s either right or it’s wrong. If it’s wrong now then it was always wrong, so it follows they should reimburse.”

The development follows a week in which the Government has faced huge pressure over donations accepted by Sir Keir, his wife and other senior politicians.

Lord Alli, a former television show creator said to be worth £200 million, has given nearly £1 million to the party.

Sir Keir’s wife, Lady Starmer, had received £5,000 worth of clothing and personal shopping from the donor. The Prime Minister accepted £16,200 worth of “work clothing” from Lord Alli in April, three months before he won the election.

MPs are required to declare gifts and donations to the parliamentary authorities within 28 days of receiving them and they are then published on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

However, the Prime Minister declared the gifts to his wife late, after initially believing they did not need to be added to the register.

It has emerged that Lord Alli has in the past publicly called for a crackdown on “bullying newspapers”.

In a separate development, The Telegraph can disclose that David Lammy took £10,000 from a Saudi-supporting PR executive months before he became Foreign Secretary.

The Prime Minister has also faced questions over the power held by Sue Gray, his chief of staff, after it emerged she was being paid more than him.

Earlier this week, he was forced to insist that he had not lost control of Downing Street, despite Ms Gray’s salary being leaked in an apparent attempt to damage her politically.

One of Sir Keir’s most senior allies, Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, rallied around Ms Gray in an interview with The Telegraph, saying he didn’t think she was “going anywhere”.

On Friday, it emerged that Ms Reeves, who has faced criticism for deciding to end winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners, benefited from cash donations for clothing.

She received four donations since the start of last year totalling £7,367 from Ms Rosenfeld, who Ms Reeves’s team said was a long-standing friend.

The donations, which all date before Ms Reeves entered government, were declared on the register of interests. However, no mention of clothing specifically was included.

Ms Reeves’s team believe no change in the declarations is needed, having consulted with the parliamentary authorities, because the money was later spent on clothes rather than clothing items specifically being donated.

Ms Rosenfeld, a psychotherapist and author, is the wife of Andrew Rosenfeld, a multi-millionaire businessman who died in 2015, aged 52, from cancer.

He had become a prominent Labour donor, and lent £1 million to Sir Tony Blair’s party ahead of the 2005 general election.

He was later invited to a dinner with the then prime minister in Downing Street and became embroiled in the cash for honours scandal after his name was suggested for a peerage.

A loophole in the law meant that while those making donations had to declare the money, loans at commercial rates did not need to be publicly declared.

It later emerged that Labour had planned to hand a number of people who had made the loans peerages in a draft honours list drawn up in September 2005.

New details have also emerged about Ms Rayner’s clothing donations. It had already come to light that she had accepted £2,230 worth of free clothing from the brand ME+EM.

On Friday, her team confirmed that a £3,550 donation from Lord Alli dated June 2024, described in the register as “donation in kind for undertaking parliamentary duties”, was actually clothing. Ms Rayner’s team is now updating her registration of interests to make the full details clear.

Reports that the donation was actually clothes first emerged in the Financial Times on Friday. It is the latest example of apparent briefing and infighting inside No 10. A hunt for the leaker of Ms Gray’s salary is already under way over fears government insiders are briefing against senior Labour figures.

Ms Reeves, Ms Rayner and Sir Keir have all now pledged not to take clothing donations in the future. Sir Keir will also not accept donations of spectacles, having done so from Lord Alli.

But the Prime Minister has not promised to stop taking tickets for football matches or concerts, such as the Taylor Swift show he attended with his wife.

On Thursday, Sir Keir defended his decision to accept corporate tickets at Arsenal, the football club he has regularly attended with his son and friends, on grounds of safety.

The Prime Minister said he could no longer sit in the same place in the stands that he had for more than a decade given the security risk, hence why he now attends in a corporate area.

That, however, does not explain why he does not take on the financial cost himself.

Some Labour MPs have called for Sir Keir to vow to stop taking all “freebies”.

One told The Telegraph: “Loads of us are livid. This is what hypocrisy looks like – and most of us have been fighting the ‘they’re all the same’ rhetoric for our whole careers, Keir’s double standards just prove it’s entirely accurate.”

Another said acceptance of such gifts could grate on the public since ordinary people “don’t have any gifts adorned on them”.

NHS hospitals are increasingly charging patients for treatment, with income rising by a quarter in just a year.

The figure is expected to keep rising, with trusts hoping to take advantage of Labour’s “relaxed” attitude to the private sector.

Analysts said that hospitals – which are facing a deficit of more than £2 billion this year – were seeking to maximise potential income from patients facing huge waiting lists.

Many offer patients private rooms and hotel-style accommodation, including fruit baskets and daily newspapers.

Five of the top 10 central London NHS trusts have released accounts that show combined forecast revenue of £197 million. Great Ormond Street Hospital, Barts Health and Royal Free saw the biggest growth, followed by Guy’s and St Thomas’, and Chelsea and Westminster.

Analysts said growth was similar across the country, with average increases of around 23 per cent at the two-thirds of trusts that had published their accounts.

Across the sector, that could mean more than £770 million raked in by NHS hospitals for private patients in the past financial year – a record, and up from £675 million in 2019-20.

Estimates suggest the figure could reach £1 billion by 2025-26.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has vowed to go further than Sir Tony Blair in using independent sector capacity to ease NHS pressures, while saying the health service must remain free at the point of use.

Last week, an independent investigation by Lord Darzi found that NHS hospitals were doing less work for their patients despite being handed more money.

His report warned that productivity had dipped sharply, with medics wasting ever more time owing to a lack of beds, diagnostics and other kit.

The figures on income from private patients also come amid warnings from Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, that next month’s Budget will involve “difficult decisions” to plug a £22 billion black hole.  The national debt – the sum total of every deficit – is now 100 per cent of Britain’s gross domestic product.

Many NHS trusts with long waiting lists offer patients fast access to consultations, diagnostics and treatment if they choose to pay for it.

Some have found other ways to bolster their funds, by charging NHS patients extra to stay in better accommodation.

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has begun offering single private rooms to patients for up to £205 a night with an en suite bathroom. The hotel-style package, which began being offered earlier this year, includes a basket of fruit, a widescreen television and a daily newspaper.

NHS hospital trusts are permitted to generate up to 49 per cent of their income from private patients. In recent years, most trusts which earned private income received much less, with most getting less than 10 per cent.

Analysts said the combination of long waiting lists and straitened NHS finances meant hospitals were increasingly trying to maximise their income from private patients.

Experts said hospitals without private patients units were losing out on income, because patients with health insurance were often prepared to use it, but struggled to find private hospitals that could carry out the treatment required.

Many large private chains focus on low-intensity, high-volume surgery, such as cataracts and hip and knee operations.

NHS trusts with private patient units – which can mean a whole wing, or just a few beds – are often more able to carry out complex work, including cancer and heart treatment, and revision surgery, and have the back-up of intensive care facilities.

Philip Housden, of Housden Group, a specialist healthcare consultancy, which analysed the accounts of major trusts with private patients units, said: “If patients with health insurance can’t be seen in a private hospital – perhaps because the case is complex – then the NHS will often end up having to treat them, and footing the bill. It means the public purse is effectively subsidising private health insurers.

“All of this adds to pressures on NHS waiting lists, and costs for hospital trusts. I imagine that the Labour Government will be thinking about this.”

He said NHS trusts were estimated to be losing around £1 billion a year in treating patients that could have been treated as private patients, using health insurance.

He said increasing use of private services in the NHS was a way of “placing more of the rising costs of the NHS on to the broadest shoulders”.

However, another senior health service source described NHS private patient units as the “dirty secret” of the NHS, because facilities funded by the taxpayer were used for those who were able to pay, although staffing costs were paid for by the private sector.

England’s health system is forecasting a deficit of around £2.2 billion across its services for 2024-25.

Health leaders say that despite £165 billion funding for the NHS – a record, outside of the pandemic – trusts are struggling to make ends meet, partly because of major costs in recent years, such as the £3 billion covering strikes.

One NHS source said trusts were seeking ways to maximise their income, while cutting waiting times. He said many trust leaders felt encouraged by the stance taken by the Health Secretary, who has said he will go “further” than Sir Tony in using the private sector to ease NHS pressures.

He said: “I think Labour is in some ways happier to see the grey area between public and private spending, there is a tendency to be more relaxed about it.

“There are some ironclad rules, it can’t come at the expense of NHS patients, but the Health Secretary has made clear his interest in use of the private sector, and trusts will act accordingly”.

Under Sir Tony, Labour introduced Patient Choice, allowing patients to have NHS treatment carried out by the private sector. Meanwhile, private healthcare groups were given contracts to carry out block contracts of work for the NHS, such as cataract operations and hip and knee surgery.

Use of the private sector is expected to feature heavily in the 10-year plan for the NHS, due to be published next year.

The senior NHS source said: “The public is quite pragmatic, as long as the outcome is good they don’t care who provides it.

“Often you have got the same consultants who would be working privately elsewhere doing that work on your site, and bringing in income to your trust.”

The trends come as the public grows increasingly resigned to paying for their care.

A survey by the  Independent Healthcare Providers Network shows that almost seven in 10 people (67 per cent) say that they would consider using private healthcare.

Data from the Private Healthcare Information Network show record numbers of hospital admissions of private patients, with 238,000 in the first quarter of 2024, up from 199,000 admissions in the same quarter in 2019.

Sir Julian Hartley, the chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, said: “Providing some private care allows NHS trusts to reinvest that income in services for patients. Faced with growing demand and a tough financial climate, trusts have cut the longest waits for treatment and continue to work flat out to see patients as quickly as possible.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The NHS is broken, forcing many patients who can afford it to choose to go private for faster healthcare. Meanwhile, those who can’t are left behind in a two-tier system.

“This Government will take a principled but pragmatic approach to the use of the private sector to cut the NHS care backlog. In the long-term, our 10-Year plan will reform the NHS so no one feels forced to pay for treatment.”