BHS former boss Dominic Chappell says Sir Philip Green ‘worse than Gaddafi’ to deal with

Chappell said Sir Philip 'tipped BHS over the edge'

Chappell bought the chain from Sir Philip for £1 in March 2015 (Getty Images)

Dominic Chappell, the former owner of BHS, said negotiating with Colonel Gaddafi, the former Libyan dictator, was easier than dealing with Sir Philip Green.

Chappell bought the chain from Sir Philip for £1 in March 2015. He laid blame on Sir Philip for plunging BHS into administration rather than allowing it to be sold to Mike Ashley the disgraced Sports Direct founder.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight’s Adam Parsons in his first interview since the collapse of BHS, Chappell said his family dealt heavily in the Middle East and met with the Gaddafis on a number of occasions.

Asked to compare dealing with Gaddafi to doing business with Sir Philip Green, Chappell said: “It was a difficult comparison. Gaddafi senior was nuts, he was completely insane but negotiating with him was actually easier than negotiating with Philip Green.”

Chappell said Sir Philip “tipped it [BHS ]over the edge.”

“The inevitable death of this company was Sir Philip not sorting out the pensions regulating and not sorting his moral hazard and that of Arcadia,” he said.

Chappell also pushed back claims that the collapse of BHS was caused by the money he took out of the company.

During a parliamentary session with former bosses of BHS in June, Chappell was branded a “Premier League liar” with “fingers in the till”. Darren Topp, chief executive of BHS at the time of its collapse, said that Chappell once threatened to kill him after he challenged him on the transfer of millions in funds.

“I took a big risk going in and it was a risk reward. We live in a risk reward society, that’s the way companies are built and fail,“ Chappell said in the same interview.

“Did I take a lot of money out? Yes I did. But did the business fail because of the amount of money I took out? No it didn’t. This was just a drip in the ocean compared to the money that was needed to turn around BHS,” he added.

Chappell confirmed that he had intended to fire Darren Topp but denied he threatened to kill him, saying he merely said he would “sort him out”.

The collapse of BHS, which has put 11,000 jobs at risk and left a £571 million hole in its pension fund, has seen Chappell accused of receiving millions of pounds in payments before the department store collapsed.

In the interview, Chappell “sincerely and utterly” apologised to BHS employees saying the plight of the staff affects him deeply.

BHS failed just 13 months after it was sold by Sir Philip Green for £1. All remaining BHS stores will close by the end of July.