Former Leeds United chief launches human trafficking case

David Haigh, the former Leeds United managing director, has requested London law firm Stephenson Harwood to bring forward a case against his former employers, accusing them of engaging in human trafficking to lure him to Dubai, where he has been imprisoned since May 2014.

Haigh alleges that the club’s former owners Gulf Finance House, and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Peter Gray, tricked him in coming to Dubai in order to have him arrested and imprisoned indefinitely without charge on suspicion that he falsified £3m of invoices.

Haigh was arrested on 18 May 2014 when GFH accused him of committing fraud, embezzlement and money laundering when he was employed by the Bahrain-based bank.

Gray, based in Dubai, represented GFH at the time in its litigation and criminal complaint against Haigh for the alleged fraud.

GFH chief executive Hisham Al Rayes and Jinesh Patel, a Leeds director, are the subject of Haigh’s case, which claims they enticed him to Dubai to make an offer of a new London-based job.

Gray was not named as a defendant on the original court application submitted earlier this year, but his name has now been added after Haigh accused Gray of being involved in an apparent “conspiracy” to have him imprisoned, according to The Lawyer.

The charge against them on the most recent application claims the three men breached Haigh’s human rights, blackmailed him and also engaged in human trafficking to get him to travel to Dubai.

It claims: “[Haigh] was in effect blackmailed by those who had arranged and facilitated his departure [from the UK to Dubai].”

“Hisham Ahmed Noor Abulqadar Al Rayes, Jinesh Patel and Peter Mathew James Gray, between 1 April 2014 and 25 March 2015, and continuing, conspired together and with others to traffic David Lawrence Haigh for exploitation by encouraging him to travel to Dubai, and by arranging a visa, paying a substantial immigration fine for his staying outside of the UAE for more than 6 months, and procuring him an air ticket, thus facilitating his departure from the United Kingdom.”

Rovine Chandrasekera, managing partner of Stephenson Harwood Dubai, is leading the case for Haigh. He is assisted by associates Shiraz Sethi and Joanne Lewis and has instructed Great James Street’s Alun Jones QC.

Al Rayes and Patel will be represented by Bryan Cave partner Robert Dougans, who has instructed Matrix Chambers’ Andrew Bodnar.

The first hearing of the case will take place on April 9, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

Both Stephenson Harwood and Great James Street’s Jones, who has already travelled to the middle east three times to meet the client, are representing Haigh on a conditional fee arrangement, with an agreement that fees will be paid at a later date.

Haigh is unable to pay the legal team because GFH’s lawyers Gibson Dunn successfully obtained a worldwide freezing order on his bank accounts in the Dubai courts in June 2014.

Furthermore, Grey was also suspended by Gibson Dunn after it was claimed he willingly gave falsified evidence to the High Court in a case between the Republic of Djibouti and one of its citizens, Abdourahman Boreh (23 March 2015).

Haigh makes reference to the Djibouti case in his own claim against Gray, claiming there are “striking similarities” between the two.

The claim reads: “Mr Gray’s conduct in [the Djibouti] case bears striking similarities to the conduct alleged in this case; in each, Mr Gray has been involved in manipulating proceedings in which a person against whom his firm was acting was kept under compulsion in Dubai: one on bail; the other, Mr Haigh in prison.”