Ex-Royal Marine bodyguard to Dubai ruler LOSES his unfair dismissal claim 

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A British security chief for the Ruler of Dubai who claimed he was sacked because of his knowledge of ‘intimate personal matters’ involving his wife has lost his claim for unfair dismissal.

Ex-Royal Marine Mark Bromilow, 41, led the security detail for Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum and his family at their base in Newmarket, Suffolk but was made redundant in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

The bodyguard, a former powerlifting world champion from Norfolk, claimed he was unfairly targeted because of what he knew about the private life of the royals following a ‘close working relationship’ with Princess Haya.

Recently it emerged that the Princess had an affair with bodyguard Russell Flowers – Mr Bromilow’s colleague – for two years.

After the affair Sheikh Mohammed, 72, divorced 47 year old Princess Haya – who is the daughter of Jordan’s former King Hussein. The landmark divorce was described as the biggest in British history, with a settlement of £550 million.

The Princess, Sheikh Mohammed’s sixth and youngest wife, was said to have showered former soldier Mr Flowers with gifts and reportedly paid him £1.2 million to keep quiet about the affair.

In March 2019, after Mr Flowers quit, Mr Bromilow replaced him as being in charge of the close protection unit at the base in sheikh’s base Newmarket, Suffolk.

In 2020, security firm UK Mission Enterprise made 63 employees including Mr Bromilow redundant because there was a significant reduction in foreign travel due to the pandemic and the ‘uncertainty deepened’ at the business.

But Mr Bromilow alleged the entire redundancy process was a ‘sham’ designed to get rid of him because of his knowledge of ‘intimate personal matters’.

He has now lost his unfair dismissal case at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, with Employment Judge Richard Conley ruling the redundancy was fair and he was not ‘targeted’.

Mr Bromilow had claimed there was favouritism towards a bodyguard who didn’t lose his job and that his own seniority and seven years of service were not properly considered or scored fairly during redundancy assessment.

Mr Bromilow claimed he should have been awarded maximum points in each assessment but an employment tribunal has now ruled he ‘overestimated his own abilities’.

The tribunal heard Mr Bromilow, once crowned London’s Strongest Man, began working for UK Mission Enterprise as a bodyguard in October 2013.

The Knightsbridge-based company boasts of a ‘6 star quality private concierge service to exclusive VIP Clients’ on its website and the Dubai Royal Family are ‘major clients’.

He was promoted to team leader of the Dubai Global Close Protection Team in December 2016 and put in charge of the team of 12 bodyguards in March 2019 following Mr Flowers’ departure.

None of the other 62 redundancies were challenged apart from Mr Bromilow’s, the tribunal heard.

He complained colleague Gary Hurstwaite – who was deemed ‘irreplaceable’ – was not considered for redundancy.

He felt he was ‘not scored fairly against the criteria’ and ‘that he should have been scored significantly higher than his colleagues in the selection pool, by reason of his seniority as a team leader’.

A tribunal report added: ‘Mr Bromilow believes that the motivation for his unfair treatment in this process is that he was, through his close working relationship with the Princess, privy to knowledge of intimate personal matters relating to her and to the wider Royal family; and that as a consequence, he was targeted for redundancy.’

He argued Dubai was a ‘controlling force in the business and were dictating their will to the company’, but Judge Conley dismissed it and said there was nothing ‘sinister’ at play.

Assessment scores from an exercise in 2017 were considered during the process and Mr Bromilow was ranked seven out of 12 for firearms, eighth in close quarter combat, and eighth in driving.

But Mr Bromilow believed not only that he should have scored higher than junior colleagues, but maximum points in each criteria.

Ruling he was fairly dismissed, Judge Conley said it was ‘abundantly clear that the company justifiably sought to reduce its costs by making redundancies’.

The judge added: ‘I am afraid that such evidence as I do have before me in relation to Mr Bromilow tends to support the evidence… that he adequately met the standard required of him, but that he was not in any way exceptional and that others in the team outscored him.

‘It appears to me that he has, unfortunately, over-estimated his own abilities.

‘He has fallen into error by assuming that his position as the team leader automatically meant that he was more capable than his colleagues.

‘This is evident from the correspondence from his solicitors which suggests that, not only should he have scored more highly than he did, but that in fact he should have scored maximum points on each of the criteria.

‘This is, on any view, unrealistic and has the effect of undermining his credibility in respect of his complaints of unfairness generally.

‘Underpinning this claim is the belief on the part of Mr Bromilow that the entire redundancy process, as far as he was concerned, was a sham, and that his redundancy was predetermined.

‘The alleged motive was that due to his knowledge of private matters relating to the Princess and her family, he was targeted for dismissal by the company at the behest of their client in Dubai.

‘I did not find any evidence of ‘targeting’ of this sort. This was quite obviously a genuine redundancy situation in which 63 employees lost their jobs for reasons directly connected to the pandemic.

’62 of them accepted generous settlements.

‘Had the company wanted rid of him as urgently as he appears to believe, I do not believe they would have retained him as long as they did, paying him his full salary for some considerable time after the controversial matters of which he claimed to have knowledge came to light, and sought to make him redundant as part of a large scale redundancy exercise.’

Mr Bromilow had been put on furlough before he was made redundant in September 2020.

The former Marine, of Methwold, Norfolk, now runs a personal training company.

Sheikh Mohammed and Princess Haya were involved in a messy High Court battle, with the sheikh trying to have their children returned to Dubai after she had fled to the UK with them when he confronted her about the affair.

Sheikh Mohammed, who oversaw the growth of Dubai as a global city and masterminded the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, is an influential horse-racing owner as well ruler of Dubai and PM of the UAE.

Princess Haya now lives in a £85m home in Kensington, London.