West Ham owner David Sullivan ‘believed he had sex with 16-year-old girl’ when he was in 40s

David Sullivan has been accused of ‘preying on teenage models’ in an explosive Panorama episode.

The 77-year-old resigned as West Ham joint-chair and has vowed to sue the BBC ahead of the ‘impending publication of serious historic allegations’.

BBC’s Panorama reported Sullivan admitting to paying for sex in the 90s with a girl who, he says, he believed was 16 or 17 years old at the time.

It only became illegal to pay for sex with a 16 or 17-year-old in 2003.

The allegations come from seven models, in their late teens or early twenties at the time, seeking work at his Daily and Sunday Sport titles.

One using the name Florence claims Sullivan penetrated her after promising to make her one of his ‘regular girls’.

Then, aged 20, she tried to make excuses, including that she was on her period, before he manoeuvred her into a bedroom and started having sex with her, she said.

‘This is the bit that will haunt me forever,’ she said.

‘He lifted his pinky in the air – his little finger – and he went, it’s all right, I’ll only put it in a little bit.’

She was in ‘pure panic mode’, Florence said, and she is ‘99.999999%’ sure that she was telling him: ‘I don’t want to, I don’t want to.’

‘I don’t know whether it was a whisper. It wasn’t a scream,’ she said.

Florence said she panicked and said her boyfriend was outside, but Sullivan was undeterred, saying: ‘It will only take a minute and he never has to know.’

His lawyers say Florence’s account is ‘implausible’.

Blow job or no job

Panorama alleges Sullivan earned the nickname ‘No job/blow job’ – after allegedly asking models to perform oral sex in return for modelling in his papers.

The Guardian once quoted him as saying: ‘I’ve always said what’s the point in owning a sweet shop if you can’t eat a few sweets.’

Sacha another model claimed she remembered being summoned to his mansion for a business meeting.

She said she was surprised by how scruffily dressed the businessman was when she met him, finding him in ‘flip-flops’ and a scruffy t-shirt.

‘But when he asked me to come and sit next to him, I’m like, what is going on? Like, that’s not part of the job interview. So I walk over, I put my bra back on… and I sat as far away as I could get.’

She said she told him: ‘If you think I’m going to sleep with you to get in the paper, you’ve got another thing coming.’

‘He looked very shocked as I said that,’ she continued. ‘And then said, what, not even a blow job?”

Shocked, she said she replied: ‘No, definitely not.’

Sullivan, who made his fortune from pornography, claims he is now facing ‘a small number of improper conduct claims’ after meeting ‘thousands of women’ in the adult industry.

In his own statement, Sullivan branded the allegations made against him as ‘defamatory’ and ‘false’, and said he plans to sue the BBC for libel.

‘I have recently become aware that factually incorrect and entirely false, decades-old allegations concerning my personal life are due to be broadcast and published,’ Sullivan said.

‘The false allegations levelled against me have been sensationalised by the media. After a lifetime spent building businesses in the adult industry in which I have met thousands of women, it is sadly inevitable that a small number of improper conduct claims are being made against me. I categorically deny these claims.

‘I am a private man, and those who personally and professionally know the real David Sullivan, not the caricature invented by the tabloids, know exactly who I am and what I stand for. I am absolutely not the person the media has decided to paint me as.

‘I have not been provided with any proper explanation as to how these individuals or their claims were independently verified or assessed for credibility prior to publication. I believe that the entire process has been fundamentally unfair and completely lacking in any due impartiality. I will be suing the BBC for libel, along with any other media outlet that repeats any libellous allegations.

‘None of these allegations relate to my more than 30 years in football; West Ham United has been one of the greatest passions and privileges of my life. I care deeply about the club, its supporters, its players, its staff, and its future. At what is already a challenging and important time for the club, I refuse to allow personal matters concerning me to become an unnecessary distraction or a source of instability.

‘Therefore, after very careful consideration and with a heavy heart, I have decided to resign as Joint-Chair and Director of West Ham United FC with immediate effect.’