Baroness Bra’s bust-up with builders over £17million mansion… tycoon accused of ‘bullying staff with offended emails and threats to disgrace them’
Disgraced lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone has felt rather sorry for herself in the face of public anger sparked by her failure to repay £122million to the Government for her unsuitable Covid gowns.
Yet it seems the Glasgow-born entrepreneur has herself been the orchestrator of online ‘bullying’ – after the Daily Mail discovered she threatened to expose her builders on social media to get them to do a better job.
A whistleblower who worked for Baroness Mone, 54, said she sent aggressive emails to workmen who were hired to carry out work on one of her London townhouses, which she has since sold.
After some delays to the building work, she sent a note to her glazier saying she would bill him £1,000 a night for her hotel room and threatened to tell her ‘1 million-plus social media followers’ his firm ‘have let us down’.
The glazier, who asked not to be named through fear of more threats from the baroness, said: ‘She was horrible to everyone, not just me. When one builder dropped some heavy gym equipment on to her new floors, she called him a c*** and told him he’d have to pay for repairs.’
The revelations come months after a television investigation reported that her former empire, MJM International – which was responsible for the Ultimo bra – was at the centre of several employment tribunals, including one high-profile case in which a member of staff found a recording device in his office.
Pictures supplied to the Daily Mail show stunning glasswork installed in one of her London homes, including a three-storey water feature backdropped by a mirror and ‘floating’ skylights. The Belgravia property was sold for £17.8 million two years ago as part of attempts by the baroness and her businessman husband Doug Barrowman to offload some of their UK property portfolio.
When the Covid pandemic began in 2020, Baroness Mone personally lobbied the Government to spend £200 million on hospital gowns and masks. This month, a judge ruled that the 25 million Chinese-made surgical gowns supplied by PPE Medpro had not been properly sterilised.
Michelle Mone has been the orchestrator of online ‘bullying’ – after the Daily Mail discovered she threatened to expose her builders on social media to get them to do a better job
The Belgravia property was sold for £17.8 million two years ago as part of attempts by the baroness and her businessman husband Doug Barrowman to offload some of their UK property portfolio
Astonishingly, Baroness Mone came out fighting, denying any personal responsibility, and attacking the Government for having a ‘vendetta’ against her.
When Chancellor Rachel Reeves laughed ‘too right we do’, the peer complained of ‘dangerous and inflammatory’ language.
And she complained that social media had ‘gone into meltdown with threats and abuse’ after the ‘machinery of the state’ was ‘deployed’ against her, ‘a private citizen’. She was particularly aggrieved that criticism had been directed ‘at me personally’ rather than at the business PPE Medpro ‘as a corporate entity’.
However, Baroness Mone took a rather more relaxed attitude to ‘deploying’ her title and House of Lords address when her own will was thwarted.
The glazier, brought in to do up the London mansion in 2018, said he had never worked with someone so rude.
A series of angry emails – all featuring the sign-off ‘Kindest Regards, Lady Michelle Mone OBE, Baroness of Mayfair, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW’ – read: ‘We are moving into our new home in less than two weeks. Your company is holding us up.
‘Failure to deliver on time will cost your company hotel bills for myself and my partner Doug Barrowman at The Corinthia Hotel.’
A week later, she wrote directly to the glazier a second time, saying: ‘You have failed to turn up & broken your promise again. Don’t you dare make any excuses that the payment was slightly held up when you’ve sat with our money in your bank for months. Get your team down ASAP tomorrow & finish this job before you deal with our lawyers in hotel bills etc.
‘I’m sure my 1 million-plus social media followers don’t want to hear that you have let us down!’
The bemused glazier said he never agreed any timescale with the baroness, made clear he was waiting on other workmen, and that he offered to return the money if the mirrors could be fitted by others sooner.
Pictures supplied to the Daily Mail show stunning glasswork installed in one of her London homes, including a three-storey water feature backdropped by a mirror and ‘floating’ skylights
He added: ‘To her, I was just something she trod in.’
Baroness Mone and Mr Barrowman, 60, remain under National Crime Agency fraud and bribery investigation over their PPE deals, and PPE Medpro shows no sign of repaying the £122m.
A spokesman for Baroness Mone said: ‘The refurbishment work was significantly delayed due to poor project management. The emails in question were neither threatening nor bullying, reflecting understandable frustration at unacceptable quality and repeated delays.
‘There is absolutely no evidence to support any claim of bullying, and Baroness Mone completely rejects such an allegation.
‘Regarding the claim she used offensive language towards someone delivering gym equipment, Baroness Mone categorically denies this. These are entirely false and malicious claims.’
