How Crispin Odey Evaded Sexual Assault Allegations for Decades

The FT’s investigation into former City legend Crispin Odey plunged his highly successful hedge fund into crisis. Bankers severed ties with it, investors pulled their money, and Odey – friend of prime ministers and City grandees and worth an estimated £800m – was expelled. Within five months Odey Asset Management closed down.

The implosion is testimony to the power of serious investigative journalism: the piece chronicled, at length and in forensic detail, the stories of 13 women whom Odey sexually abused over decades, along with the blind eye turned by others in the business, the authorities and even a judge, who cleared him of sexual assault in 2021 while criticising the complainant’s “vivid imagination.” 

The fear and impotence the abused women felt while working with Odey is palpable in their personal testimonies – which forced the authorities to sit up and take notice, and prompted more women to come forward.

The judges praised “a searingly powerful exposé that broke the levee on accusations of a pattern of predatory behaviour by one of the City’s most powerful individuals.” They acknowledged that “publishing the investigation into a man with such influence and deep pockets must have felt perilous for the FT and its reporters too.”