Thread by @fascinatorfun

The @FT throwing down the gauntlet at Crispin Odey again. “The Octopus” “20 stone toddler” his utterly boorish assaults on his receptionist staff and others so well known they would be warned, on being given their passwords, not to take the lift with him.

https://twitter.com/miss_marriage/status/1666678156495814657

The so-called “Odey Girls” gained a reputation, she said, for having good legs because they “always took the stairs”.

He was known for hiring “earls and girls”.

Most are adamant that everyone — from junior staff to senior partners — knew how vulnerable they were to unwanted attention from Odey. “I think you’d have to have been under a rock if you didn’t,” said one. “Literally under a rock.”

A young woman who was seeking financial backing and approached Odey recounts being asked to a business meeting at the financiers home.

When she arrived his wife was not there. She felt uneasy

After an hour or so, Odey stood up and turned away from Bianca.

When he turned back to face her, his erect penis was exposed. Shocked, she fled to the toilet. “I was sitting there going, oh my God, oh my God,” she said. “There was no subtlety or lead up. It was just there all of a sudden.”

When she returned to the kitchen, Odey was fully clothed and acted as if nothing had happened.

Yet she stayed and finished her business pitch, desperate for funds and not wanting to offend such a powerful man, drinking for Dutch courage. Yes. Unwisely.

Too late for her train to Berkshire. She says he offered her his son’s bedroom promising “nothing would happen”.

Of course it did.

She said she lay curled up fully dressed on the bed when he came in and started touching her and removed her trousers.

“She pleaded with him to stop, but he continued. “I was so ashamed, & he was so big and intimidating I just lay there, saying we should not be doing this,” she wrote in the police statement.”

“He then started putting his fingers inside me and thrusting them hard and touching himself. I don’t remember much else, except I tried to fake something so it would all be over. But I couldn’t, so I started crying, softly at first, as I didn’t want to get him angry.”

“ And then I couldn’t control it and started sobbing and sobbing and putting my hands over my face.”

After a few minutes, Odey got up and left.”

You can see why her complaint got nowhere with police. Why did she not leave at the first indecent exposure?

Why did she not ensure she had enough time to miss her train?

Why did she not fight back when he removed her trousers etc?

I get all that but I can tell you that conduct like his was certainly quite common in the 1970s and 1980s and there WAS NO POINT aim saying anything.

There are so many women - junior employees- recounting other similar boorish assaults: senior management must have known & did not intervene.

Two sexual assaults are recounted FOLLOWING the 2021 case that he successfully defended. I mean why not? He must have felt empowered

Indeed U.K. regulators still find him to be a “fit and proper person”.

Several employees said Odey engineered situations to corner female staff. Jane, a former junior employee, recalled three occasions on which she found herself alone with him.

In early 2017, he surprised her in a small meeting room and said: “We are going to fuck.” Taken aback, she tried to laugh off the comment.

It did not stop there. Nor did it stop after the incident below.

This sort of thing happened to me as a young lawyer.

“Receptionists said they were subjected to prolonged, invasive hugs, during which Odey nestled his mouth in the nape of their necks, pulled them inappropriately close or kissed them on the forehead.”

“On one occasion when he tried to kiss a receptionist, she turned her face. Odey, she recalled, stuck his tongue in her ear.”

What a boor.

Of course he felt emboldened. He keeps getting away with it.

The stipendiary magistrate who tried the 2021 case, Nicholas Rimmer, found Odey not guilty.

He did not stop there however.

“He told the financier he could leave the courtroom with his “good character intact” and congratulated him on reaching his sixties “without a stain on your character”. He was also highly critical of the complainant”.

40 women have confirmed this pattern of Odey’s conduct to the FT

FORTY.

Rimmer must feel so proud of his judgement.

Meanwhile an internal investigation was carried out by Simmonds and Simmonds and on the back of it Odey was given a final written warning in Jan 2021

“Odey was no longer permitted to communicate with female staff about non-work matters, invite female staff to lunch or engage in unwanted touching.” The Financial Conduct Authority was informed

Then there was the trial in Feb 2021.

“Not a stain on his character.”
Right

So, given there have been two MORE complaints how come he is still there?

Well they tried.

“The committee started a second investigation into its founder in October 2021, according to former insiders and company documents reviewed by the FT.”

“It concluded that Odey had potentially breached his written warning, the staff handbook and the FCA’s fitness and propriety guidelines. A second disciplinary hearing was scheduled for December 2021, but Odey delayed.”

Guess what Odey did?

“Then, the financier decided to sack his executive committee instead, emailing partners on Christmas Eve claiming the committee had received bad legal advice and was driving the firm towards destruction.”

Does he remind you of anyone?

Yes. He really did do that and about a third of the senior executives left in the wake of that.

The rest are complicit given the now known scale of his disgusting conduct.

So are organisations and people who leave their funds with him.

But that is not all.

Oh no.

Guess what ELSE the financial services market did.

Wait for it.

“Earlier this year, Odey joined his remaining colleagues at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House in Mayfair for the hedge fund world’s equivalent of the Oscars.”

“The black-tie gala gathered the City’s financial elite, who vied to beat competitors for awards in categories such as Equity Market Neutral & Quantitative Strategies, Event Driven & Distressed and the coveted Management Firm of the Year.”

“Odey Asset Management won firm of the year, beating seven rivals. The awards are based on financial performance, but they confer industry-wide recognition and celebration on winners. By then, eight women had reported Odey’s behaviour to the press or police.”

Read that again.

Odey Asset Management won the firm of the year in 2023.

And his conduct was by then well known in those circles.

And the fact that he gets away with it.

Remind you of anyone?

“For some of the 13 women who spoke to the FT, Odey’s continued public rehabilitation has highlighted the limitations of the #MeToo movement. “Without standing up to him, he will do it again and continue doing it,” Louise said.”

““The number of known assaults is large enough now that we are able to validate each other’s stories and face him with the confidence needed to stop his vile behaviour continuing.”

Oh. And the stipendiary magistrate that heard Odey’s case in February 2021?

He was made a circuit judge in October 2022.

Although his then wife accompanied him to all the court hearing, smiling and holding his hand, the marriage did not survive.

She divorced him. Expensively.

As part of the settlement, Nichola got keep their mansion in Gloucestershire’s Forest of Dean, including Cluckingham Palace, a £150,000 Palladian coop that Odey had built to house his chickens

Was that the deal then? She’d play the part at his trial and he’d hand over the dosh

Undeterred he found another sucker to marry him in 2022

Dina Vitkova. Wife no 3.

When they were still courting (ha!) in 2021 (so the separation from wife no 2 can’t have taken long after the court case) he is alleged to have committed another indecent assault this time on a 50 years old woman…and Dinah was Crispin’s co-host.

Louise called him “a revolting sweaty mess”.

She managed to push him off : “What the fuck do you think are you doing?”

Shocked she retired to the party.

It continued to anger her and she eventually asked him to attend a meeting in the family office. He attended.

She confronted him with his conduct. This conduct

Out he came with the same garbage he presented at his 2021 trial.

“I misread the signals.” “There were no signals to misread,” she countered.

This is Johnson’s mate and financial backer.

Rees-Mogg’s

Kwasi Kwarteng’s.

Maybe Odey isn’t a “successful gambler.”

Maybe he has solid political information in advance to assist his gambles.