The former boss of Pret A Manger broke down in tears when he was forgiven by the father of the teenage girl who died after eating one of its baguettes, it has been revealed.
Mr Nadim Ednan-Laperouse said he approached the former boss of the sandwich firm Clive Schlee after “a vision in church”.
“I put one hand on his heart, the other on his shoulder and said ‘Clive I forgive you for the death of my child to set you free, so you can be the best father to your two daughters.’”
Mr Ednan-Laperouse said Mr Schlee’s “eyes welled up and he started to cry”.
The reconciliation came after Mr Ednan-Laperouse had spent two years “boiling with vengeance” at Mr Schlee – and contemplated taking his own life.
Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died aged 15 in 2016 after an allergic reaction to a Pret A Manger baguette bought at Heathrow airport. She collapsed on a flight to Nice and died shortly after arriving.
At the coroner’s inquest her father blamed Pret for failing to list ingredients including sesame, to which Natasha was allergic, on the packaging.
The coroner ruled the labelling was “inadequate”.
Mr Schlee said in 2019 that listening to details of Natasha’s last moments was “the worst period of my life”.
The act of forgiveness represented a change of heart. When Mr Schlee apologised in a letter of condolence to the family two years after Natasha’s death they said it was “too little too late”.
Mr Ednan-Laperouse, 57, has now disclosed how he later forgave Mr Schlee in an emotional meeting.
“For two years I was raging with anger, boiling over with vengeance uncontrollably,” he told Sir Craig Oliver in his podcast Desperately Seeking Wisdom.
“I blamed the company and the boss. One day I was in church and had a vision that I would forgive the very man that I blamed for the death of my child.”
It was four days after his “church vision” that he met Mr Schlee and said he no longer held him personally responsible for his daughter’s death.
He told the businessman he wanted to ensure “that the horror of what’s happened” does occur again.
Explaining why he extended the hand of friendship, Mr Ednan-Laperouse said: “None of us sets out to do harm to others in this way. It was a mix of poor judgement and taking your eye off the ball. He deserves to be forgiven for even the most horrific thing.”
Mr Ednan-Laperouse said he had “felt suicidal for quite a while” after Natasha died. “I was reliving flashbacks – but I’ve had treatment for it. Thankfully I can talk about it now. If I hadn’t got help I wouldn’t be here today.”
Mr Schlee, 63, stepped down as Pret A Manger’s chief executive in 2019.
