‘Minister for tolerance’ groped me at launch of book festival
British curator accuses Sheikh
A BRITISH woman working on a Middle East spinoff of the Hay Literary Festival has accused the United Arab Emirates’ tolerance minister of a violent sexual assault.
Caitlin McNamara, 32, claims Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan groped her in a golden lift before exposing himself in a bedroom and assaulting her.
The 69-year- old sheikh denies any wrongdoing in the incident, which is said to have happened on Valentine’s Day this year.
Miss McNamara, who has waived her right to anonymity, says she was so terrified that she fled the country within hours. She has given a statement to the Metropolitan Police, and says they are so concerned about repercussions they have installed a panic button in her east London flat.
Hay festival chairman Caroline Michel said Miss McNamara’s colleagues supported her and the festival will not return to Abu Dhabi while Sheikh Nahyan remained in his post.
Miss McNamara, who had been hired by Hay to organise its first collaboration with the UAE, was invited to dinner by the sheikh, she told The Sunday Times. Rather than a meeting with other organisers, as she expected, Miss McNamara says she was driven to a villa on an exclusive resort owned mostly by royalty. She said: ‘After six months there I was used to being summoned to meetings at all times of day. And no one said no to Nahyan – he was like a god.’
She says Sheikh Nahyan hugged her – and gave her a £3,500 diamond-encrusted gold Tag Heuer watch. She was also served wine, despite the Islamic state being an almost entirely ‘dry’ country.
Within minutes he was touching her arm and feet as they sat on a sofa, she said, adding: ‘Suddenly it clicked why I was there. I felt so naive. I was alone on this island in a concrete building with this powerful man in a country where every day you heard stories about people disappearing in the desert.’
When she asked to leave, the sheikh – educated at British public school Millfield and Magdalen College, Oxford – allegedly waved in a servant with a choice of 15 dishes for her, including steak and chips and shepherd’s pie. Miss McNamara said: ‘It started getting really horrible. He grabbed my face and started kissing me.’ Fearing outright rejection could endanger the festival, she said she was led on a tour of the luxury villa. The sheikh groped her breasts in a golden lift, ‘in a weird way like windscreen wipers’, she claimed, then took her to a bedroom where he exposed himself as naked beneath his robes, pushed her on a bed and seriously sexually assaulted her.
Eventually his driver returned her to her Abu Dhabi hotel, Miss McNamara said.
The sheikh called her during the ride, saying ‘ I love you’, she claimed, and 100 red roses and the watch she had left behind arrived at her hotel minutes after her.
She said she made a series of panicked calls and texts, including to Hay Festival director Peter Florence, and fled to Dubai at dawn in a two-hour taxi ride.
She feared that reporting the attack locally could leave her imprisoned and in danger. Her phone shows the sheikh tried to call her 14 times within 24 hours. Miss McNamara said: ‘For a man who is a leading minister of his nation to grossly violate a woman who is there to organise a major cultural event is criminal.’
Sheikh Nahyan regularly visits Britain and is understood to have a home in Hampstead, north London. A Met Police spokesman said: ‘On Friday, July 3, a woman contacted the Metropolitan Police Service to report an allegation of rape. An initial statement has been taken from the woman. The offence allegedly occurred in February 2020 outside the UK.’
British law treats sexual assaults involving penetration as rape.
Sheikh Nahyan’s UK lawyers Schillings said: ‘Our client is “surprised and saddened” by this allegation. The account is denied.’
Mrs Michel said: ‘What happened to our friend and colleague in Abu Dhabi last February was an appalling violation and a hideous abuse of trust and position.’
‘No one said no – he was like a god’