‘Simply stomach-churning’
MEN’S- ONLY CHARITY CLOSING AFTER GROPING, HARASSMENT REVEALED
Each year, for 33 years, The Presidents Club Charitable Trust has organized a fundraising dinner at London’s exclusive Dorchester Hotel to benefit “worthy children’s causes.”
The attendees last Thursday, as in the past, were an elite from Britain’s business, finance, fashion, entertainment and political establishments, an “esteemed” group if ever there was one, as the club’s website says — esteemed to the man because it was, indeed, a “men only” event.
Men only, except for 130 “hostesses” hired to cater to the needs of the roughly 360 attendees.
Among the hostesses this year, however, were two infiltrators, a female journalist from the Financial Times named Madison Marriage and a woman working with her. They applied for hostess jobs and got them, then went undercover to report on the event.
The result was bombshell story in the FT that set off an immediate uproar Wednesday.
The Presidents Club charity announced it would close and distribute any funds left in its accounts to needy causes — if they could find any that would now take its money. Earlier, the chairman of the event, David Meller, stepped down as nonexecutive director of Britain’s Department for Education. At the same time, both donors and recipients of donations, as well as politicians, were scurrying to distance themselves from the scandal.
The first giveaway of the behaviour that would unfold at the secretive dinner came even before the reporters got there, while they were being prepped as hostesses.
The job requirements included “tall, thin and pretty,” the FT’s Marriage reported.
While the dinner was black- tie only, for the hostesses it was “BLACK sexy shoes, black underwear” and “short tight black dresses,” along with a “thick black belt resembling a corset.”
The agency hiring them did not say anything about groping. They were told that the men might be “annoying,” the FT reported. “You just have to put up with the annoying men and if you can do that it’s fine,” they were told.
The MC at the Dorchester event began the evening by welcoming the men “to the most un-PC event of the year.”
That gave only a hint of what was to come, as Marriage described it in the story.
“With the dinner properly underway,” she wrote, “the hostess brief was simple: keep this mix of British and foreign businessmen, the odd lord, politicians, oligarchs, property tycoons, film producers financiers and chief executives happy — and fetch drinks when required.
“A number of men stood with the hostesses while waiting for smoked salmon starters to arrive. Others remained seated and yet insisted on holding the hands of their hostesses … a prelude to pulling the women into their laps.”
As burlesque dancers entertained on the stage, dressed in furry hats like those worn by the famous guards at Buckingham Palace, except for the “starshaped stickers” hiding their nipples, a 19-year-old hostess was asked by a “guest nearing his 70s” whether “she was a prostitute,” which she was not, Marriage reported.
One hostess recounted to the FT a scene of “braying men” fondling her bottom, stomach and legs. Another guest “lunged at her to kiss her.”
“According to the accounts of multiple women working that night, groping and similar abuse was seen across many of the tables in the room,” the FT reported.
Hostesses said men “repeatedly” put their hands up their skirts, with one exposing himself to her during the festivities.
Hostesses who seemed unenthusiastic were prodded by “an enforcement team” to interact with the guests.
“Outside t he women’s toilets,” the FT said, “a monitoring system was in place: women who spent too long were called out and led back to the ballroom.”
One unnamed “society figure” grabbed a hostess “by the waist, pulled her in against his stomach and declared: ‘ I want you to down that glass, rip off your knickers and dance on that table.’”
Marriage, the reporter, told The Washington Post that she, too, was harassed but did not include that detail in her story because she wanted to focus on the young women who were abused. “I was propositioned and groped and received some very lewd comments,” she said.
“I genuinely felt incredibly sad and upset by what I had seen, the fact that the upper echelons of our society are operating this way in 2018.” Marriage said she managed to stay in “professional mode” for the rest of the workweek. But then, on the Saturday after the event, “I went to see my parents and I burst out crying.”
The other hostesses, who were paid about $ 211, were between the ages of 19 and 23, many of them students, some actresses, dancers and models looking for a little extra money.
After the story broke, including some undercover video, the outrage was immediate.
Members of Parliament raised questions about the presence at the dinner of Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who is undersecretary of state for children and families. He claimed to have left the event early.
“It is safe to say that Mr. Zahawi will not be attending the event in the future,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May told the Independent.
The deputy leader of Britain’s Liberal Democratic Party, Jo Swinson, called the story “simply stomach-churning.”
In a statement, the Presidents Club, noting that it had raised “several million pounds for disadvantaged children” at the event, said organizers were “appalled by the allegations of bad behaviour asserted by the Financial Times reporters.”