Boss of Sarah Ferguson-linked firm used royal links to threaten worker with jail

Sarah Ferguson's close friend and business partner, Manuel Fernandez, used his Palace links to threaten a worker with jail, according to a recording obtained by the BBC.

The worker at Fernandez's failed lifestyle app vVoosh was told that police would investigate him for allegedly putting "royal security" at risk by hacking emails.

Ferguson was an investor and "ambassador" for the business, and Fernandez used this connection to impress investors and staff, the worker claims.

Fernandez said he "strongly disputed" allegations about his conduct and the financial position of vVoosh. Ferguson's representatives did not reply.

Ferguson was regularly photographed with the Essex soldier-turned-businessman from 2015 to 2017, but she denied that they were romantically involved, telling a newspaper they were "friends and business partners".

Like many tech start-ups, vVoosh was based in the Shoreditch area of London. It planned to launch a social networking service similar to Facebook, but it collapsed last year without ever launching a product.

Ferguson owned about 1% of the shares, and loaned the company about £50,000, according to company filings.

Recordings, letters and WhatsApp chats from a former company insider raise further questions about the people Ferguson associated with, and how much she knew about how one of her close contacts used and allegedly misused his royal connections.

The senior staff member, whom we are calling "Alex", worked at vVoosh for about six years. Like many of his colleagues, he says, he was only engaged as a contractor.

In June 2017, he received a WhatsApp message from Fernandez saying he [Fernandez] had been called to "an urgent meeting at B Palace regarding the company because of the VIP shareholders".

Alex was asked to meet Fernandez the following day.

The company had been in financial trouble, and Alex says he was owed thousands in unpaid invoices, so he decided to record the meeting on a mobile phone in his jacket pocket, to "protect himself".

At the start of the meeting, Alex's other phone is apparently taken off him by force. A man who identifies himself as "Mark" and refuses to give his surname says the device belongs to the company, but he won't allow Alex to recover his personal data from the phone.

"I was so scared because this guy was, like, three times my size," Alex said in an interview with the BBC.

The BBC has established that "Mark" is a former soldier turned security adviser, Mark Harry. He said he understands "that this matter was handled by the appropriate authorities at the time. I strongly dispute the allegations made."

In the recording, Fernandez and Harry proceed to threaten Alex with jail for allegedly hacking emails. They don't specify, but they clearly imply that the emails hacked are those of Ferguson. Fernandez says he breached the "Palace's confidentiality agreement".

Alex denies hacking. He says that a company email account was set up for Ferguson, but because she never activated it, messages addressed to her were forwarded to a common inbox.

Fernandez and Harry continue to threaten Alex. Fernandez says he is in "so deep… he has no idea" and in a "world of pain", and says he faces two years in jail for breaches of the Computer Misuse Act.

The two say that other people at the company are also involved in the alleged hacking, and are facing prison sentences. One, they say, is "facing eight years".

Fernandez told the BBC: "I strongly dispute a number of allegations that have been made concerning both my conduct and financial position in relation to the company.

"Certain concerns regarding former contractors and internal data/security matters were previously reported to the appropriate authorities and reviewed by legal advisers. To my knowledge, no action was taken against me arising from those allegations."

In the meeting, Fernandez doesn't give Harry's name, he just says he is representing "some certain VIPs".

Harry says the "Palace… will not stand for it, OK?" He says the Palace "don't investigate it, or should I say we don't investigate it, that is done by Scotland Yard. And I tell you now it then becomes number one priority."

He tells Alex that he has put "the integrity and the security of our royal family and any other associated VIPs in jeopardy".

Harry did not respond to the BBC's question about whether he had any involvement in royal security, or Ferguson's security. Having divorced Andrew, Ferguson didn't have an official royal role.

Alex is told to co-operate in exchange for "lenience" – but says he wants to seek legal advice.

After the meeting, he said he was so shaken that a passing policeman asked if he was OK. "I was just standing in the street crying because I had just been threatened, you know? I didn't know what to do," he told the BBC.

Alex filed a police report, but the Met decided not to bring a case. Lawyers advised him that taking legal action over his unpaid fees would cost him more than the bills were worth.

However, that October Alex was arrested and interviewed for three hours for alleged email hacking. No charges were brought. Alex believes that Fernandez went through with his threats to go to the police.

The Met Police said it could not comment and Buckingham Palace said it was unable to comment on Ferguson's affairs.

Alex continued to receive letters from vVoosh's law firm alleging data theft, and questioning the quality of his work, until March 2018. He denies the claims, and the cases didn't go any further. The BBC is not aware of any prosecutions or court cases that resulted from this incident.

Alex said Ferguson was a regular visitor to vVoosh HQ, and that Fernandez claimed to be a regular visitor to Royal Lodge, the 30-room Windsor mansion where Ferguson lived with her former husband Andrew. He was even there for Christmas one year, Alex claims.

They discussed asking Beatrice and Eugenie, Ferguson's daughters with her ex-husband Andrew, to act as spokespeople for the business, according to Alex. The two sisters did visit the office, but the idea went no further, he says.

At one stage, Fernandez went on holiday to the Mediterranean with Ferguson, Alex says, and the company was left without leadership and unable to pay invoices.

He believes Fernandez used her name when approaching possible investors, and that she must have been aware of how he ran the company. "She must have known. If she didn't know, she was deluding herself, because she was there," he said. "When you spend any time with him, you know what he is like."

Ferguson's friendships with men have long been a source of embarrassment and controversy.

Her relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein caused particular scandal when it emerged last year that she had called him a "supreme friend" in 2011, after his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Files published by the US Department of Justice show that she lent heavily on Epstein for help when she faced bankruptcy in 2009.

vVoosh collapsed last year without ever launching a product. The administrator's report said it had raised more than £9m from investors, including £1m of tax credits from the government.

Administrators are pursuing a former director, believed to be Fernandez, for £324,609 which they believe he owes the company, though they note the matter is in dispute.

Fernandez is believed to have left the UK, with some reports saying he had moved to Italy. Property belonging to the company was recently located in a storage facility in Rome, owned by a former director, the latest administrators' report said. They judged it was not worth recovering.

The administrators also wrote that they had submitted a report on the conduct of the directors to the Department for Business, in accordance with the Company Directors Disqualification Act.