A former BBC correspondent claims she “couldn’t live” with herself in the wake of claims that she was the intended victim of the careless hitman who killed Jill Dando.
Prosecutors claim that fashion mogul Gérald Marie, 72, used the Russian Mafia to attempt to assassinate Lisa Brinkworth, now 55, after she exposed him as a sex abuser.
This accusation was made in court in France yesterday.
However, astonishing allegations in legal papers filed in Paris suggest that their shooter may have mistakenly killed TV personality Ms. Dando.
They are a part of an investigation into several allegations of rape against Marie, the ex-husband of supermodel Linda Evangelista. The accusations, in his words, are “fanciful nonsense.”
Ms. Dando was shot dead outside her home in Fulham, southwest London, when she was 37 years old. The incident is infamous for being a 23-year-old cold case.
After she accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1998 while she was working undercover to uncover fraud in the fashion industry, Ms. Brinkworth now alleges Marie, the former head of the Elite agency, wanted her dead.
Even if there was a remote possibility, she told the Mirror, “I don’t know if I could live with it, so I’m praying there’s nothing in there.”
I make an effort not to consider it. I truly, really hope that’s not the case.
Marie allegedly discussed hiring the Russian mafia to “deal with a problem” in a conversation that was allegedly overheard by a former Elite executive, according to Ms. Brinkworth’s attorneys’ court documents.
According to the reports, another BBC journalist named Jill Dando was killed by gunfire in April 1999.
The time limit for reporting sexual assault in France at the time was three years, and the time limit for reporting rape was ten years.
This leads Marie to assert that the connections to the Dando case were “made up to attempt and get the statute of limitations waived.”
The attorneys for Miss Brinkworth have submitted documents to the prosecutor in Paris saying that the act shouldn’t apply in her instance because she has lived in fear of her safety for many years.
The comparisons, according to Ms. Brinkworth’s attorneys, helped create a “climate of terror” for their clients, and “she was convinced that her silence insured her life,” they claim.
All of this precluded Ms. Brinkworth from reporting Maire for sexual assault within the allotted three years.
On Monday, a member of Marie’s legal team said: “It’s fantastical rubbish designed to indicate that Lisa Brinkworth was afraid for her life and was unable to disclose the alleged incident within a reasonable time frame because of her fear.”
In actuality, Lisa Brinkworth did not attempt to report any form of sexual abuse at the time and only began to act after many years had passed.
Following the airing of her exposé on Donal MacIntyre’s BBC show MacIntyre Investigates, Ms. Brinkworth alleges that she was held in a safe house.
Moreover, Ms. Brinkworth asserts in the legal documents that the BBC opposed her filing a lawsuit.
They claim that Omar Harfouch, a Lebanese businessman and politician who is now 53, was in a Paris dinner in 1999 when senior Elite management discussed the MacIntyre program.
Marie is reported to have exclaimed to the others, “We’re in the s**t,” after learning that a BBC program on Donal MacIntyre and Lisa Brinkworth spending six months working undercover at Elite will shortly air.
Gerald Marie stated that he had been duped. Ms. Brinkworth, who was 31 at the time, had posed to be a fashion model.
After calling Ms. Brinkworth a “big problem,” he was met with the response, “Consider it done,” from Vitali Leiba, an Elite agent located in Moscow who is reputedly closely connected to the Russian Mafia.
According to the court documents, Mr. Harfouch alleges that this was a subliminal allusion to “making [Brinkworth] disappear.”
Attorneys for 15 plaintiffs, including Ms. Brinkworth, are currently attempting to have the statute of limitations thrown out using the Harfouch testimony.
William Bourdon, Amélie Lefebvre, and Anne-Claire Lejeune write about Lisa Brinkworth’s failure to file a complaint within the required time frame after Gerald Marie is accused of sexual assault in the context of her report due to “the fear of physical reprisals, going as far as a contract killing” in a file sent to Paris prosecutors.
“They are demanding, in an unprecedented approach, an extension of the limitation period, laying the path for a future trial,” the attorneys’ report continues.
Marie was the subject of a preliminary inquiry by Paris prosecutors in September 2020 after 15 women accused him of rape and sexual assault.
All of the claimed events, however, are time-barred for prosecution because they all allegedly occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.
Marie is still free and no charges have been filed.
In the MacIntrye episode, which was broadcast by the BBC in November 1999, it was claimed that Ms. Brinkworth had been attacked in an Italian nightclub in Milan in October 1998.
On September 20, 2020, Ms. Brinkworth finally filed a complaint with the French legal authorities in which she detailed the “obscene atmosphere” that Marie allegedly created by asking her to “perform oral sex” on an Elite executive and to “let me rape you” for money.
According to the legal documents, Ms. Brinkworth was told: “No one refuses the president of Elite and it’s an honor to sleep with this man.”
She was “terrified of being raped as he started pressing his penis into her lower abdomen,” according to Ms. Brinkworth, who said that Marie “rode her while she was sitting on a chair.”
It was reported that other Elite executives were “laughing and cheering” at the moment.
Ms. Brinkworth is seen in the video telling Mr. MacIntyre about what transpired immediately following the incident.
The BBC was sued by Elite over the claims, and as part of a confidentially deal, the Corporation pledged in 2001 never to air the episode again.
According to the most recent court records, Elite put pressure on Ms. Brinkworth to remain silent even though she was not a party to that arrangement.
She claims that between 1999 and 2001, the BBC provided her with protection for three years and placed her in three safe houses, at least one of which was encircled by electric fences.
In September 2021, Ms. Brinkworth met Omar Harfouch, who amassed a multi-million pound fortune in Ukraine after the end of the Soviet Union, at a conference set up in the Paris Senate with the other claimants.
Mr. Harfoch alleged that after supporting former Elite models who claimed they had been sexually abused, he himself started to become a “target for death threats.”
The legal records identify Ms. Brinkworth as blonde, the same height, and having a similar physique to Jill Dando.
They claim that Ms Brinkworth and Ms Dando were neighbors in Fulham and that Ms Brinkworth’s doctor was Ms Dando’s partner, Alan Farthing.
The comparisons, according to Ms. Brinkworth’s attorneys, helped create a “climate of terror” for their clients, and “she was convinced that her silence insured her life,” they claim.
All of this precluded Ms. Brinkworth from reporting Maire for sexual assault within the allotted three years.
The attempt to overturn the statute of limitations, according to Gérald Marie’s attorney Céline Bekerman, had little prospect of succeeding because it was “based on fantastical reasoning.”
Ms. Brinkworth “was never a party to the agreement negotiated between Elite and the BBC,” according to Ms. Bekerman, and nothing ever prevented her from reporting sexual assault in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Ms Bekerman said Mr Harfouch’s testament about the Paris restaurant conversation was not considered a reliable one.
She said Marie denies any wrongdoing and ‘refuses to be the scapegoat for a system and an era’.
According to Ms. Bekerman, Donal MacIntyre kept a diary during the covert operation that made no mention of any allegations of a sexual assault.
The investigation into Gerald Marie is “ongoing,” according to a representative for the Paris prosecutors’ office, who also stated that no one has been detained or charged.