Is this the moment billionaire Ritz owner’s room was bugged by nephew?
CCTV footage allegedly showing Sir Frederick Barclay’s nephew handling a secret bug in the Ritz hotel was released yesterday.
The film shows Alistair Barclay inserting a plug adaptor allegedly containing a listening device into a socket in the London hotel’s conservatory.
Billionaire Sir Frederick, 85 – who owned the hotel with twin brother David at the time – has told the High Court the device was planted to spy on him during business meetings and while he smoked cigars in the room.
He has accused three of his nephews of conducting ‘commercial espionage on a vast scale’ against him and his daughter Amanda amid a feud over family trusts.
Sir Frederick called for a change in the law to ban anyone other than the authorities from using such spy devices.
More than 1,000 conversations were recorded, the High Court in London was told, including discussions between Sir Frederick and a Saudi investor who offered £1.3 billion to buy the Ritz.
The hotel has since been sold to a Qatari investor for a reported £750 million. Sir Frederick’s lawyers have questioned why his nephews accepted ‘half the price’ when a higher price had been negotiated.
During a hearing earlier this month, the High Court was told Sir Frederick had put ‘great trust’ in his nephews and now felt betrayed. He released the CCTV footage yesterday following an application to the court by the media for it to be reported. Sir Frederick said: ‘I do not want anyone else to go through the awful experience of having their personal and private conversations listened to by scores of strangers.
‘It is surely in everyone’s interests for the law to be changed to prevent people outside the authorities using sophisticated spying devices that have such an intrusive impact. I am putting this video evidence forward as a graphic demonstration of how easy it is to spy on people in public places and to help bring about legislation to prevent such damaging intrusion.’
In legal documents filed to the High Court, his team claimed his nephews had used the secret recordings to get ‘significant financial and commercial advantage’. The tapes meant the nephews knew ‘every move in advance’, his lawyers said, including Sir Frederick’s conversations with Sidra Capital, which had made an initial offer of £1.3 billion to buy the Ritz.
Lawyers for Sir Frederick claimed that Sir David’s sons, Alistair and Aidan, shared details of the secret recordings on WhatsApp, and dubbed them ‘podcasts’. The court heard there had been a breakdown in the relationship between Sir Frederick and his nephews and ‘ongoing commercial disputes’ about the sale of the Ritz and the management of their business empire.
The twins bought the five-star hotel for £75 million in 1995 as part of a business empire that includes the Telegraph newspapers and The Very Group of online retailers. Much of that empire is now owned by trusts in which their children are beneficiaries, with Sir David’s three sons holding the controlling interest, rather than Sir Frederick’s daughter Amanda.
The Barclay brothers also owned the Scotsman newspaper group for ten years before selling it for £160million in 2005.
The family firm ran the official sale process for the Ritz but Sir
Frederick conducted separate negotiations with bidders, and threatened to sue if the hotel was sold for less than £1 billion. He only learned of the bug’s existence when CCTV captured the images of Alistair Barclay in January.
It has also been claimed that a separate wi-fi bug was supplied by a private investigation firm.
Sir Frederick and his daughter launched legal action over alleged misuse of private information, breach of confidence and breach of data protection laws, against Sir David’s sons Alistair, Aidan and Howard Barclay and Aidan’s son Andrew, along with board member Philip Peters.
Heather Rogers, QC, for all five defendants, said the men possessed a wealth of information about Sir Frederick and their business ‘which they have got completely free of the recordings’.
They have yet to file a formal defence to Sir Frederick’s High Court claim.
The case continues.