Life changed for Damon Buffini nine months ago when his young family was confronted by a camel parading outside Holy Trinity, a famous church in south London where the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce once worshipped.

The trade union-orchestrated stunt was designed to humiliate the shy multimillionaire by reminding parishioners of the biblical story that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.