Dozens of women in Britain complain that during the period when they worked at Harrods, the then owner Mohamed Al Fayed raped them, while the testimonies of five of them are chilling. The incidents took place in London, Paris, St Tropez and Abu Dhabi.
According to the BBC report, there are so far testimonies from more than 20 women who say they were victims of sexual assault or rape by the billionaire, who died last year at the age of 94. Furthermore, there is evidence that the company not only failed to intervene, but assisted in the cover-up.
Lawyer Bruce Damen, from the legal team representing some of the women, said “the web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark”, while the current owners of the London luxury store said they were “shocked”. and apologized sincerely to the victims.
“All the staff were his toys”
Testimonies from former Harrods employees are shocking: “I made it clear I didn’t want it, I didn’t give consent,” says one of the women who claims Al Fayed raped her in his Park Lane flat. “I just wanted this to be over.”
Another woman reveals she was a teenager when he raped her: “Mohammed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with absolutely no moral code,” she says, adding that all the staff at Harrods were his “playthings”. “We were all very scared. Cultivate fear. If he said ‘jump’ the staff would ask ‘how high’.”
Mohammed al-Fayed had faced allegations of sexual assault while he was alive, but the current allegations are unprecedented in scale and according to the BBC the number of victims could be much higher.
“Mohammed al-Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with absolutely no moral code”
Mohammed al-Fayed (centre) stands behind the statue he made for Nnodi and Princess Diana at Harrods
“We were all watching, but we were powerless to stop it”
Al Fayed’s business career began on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, selling soft drinks to passers-by. But what helped him cultivate new relationships and build his empire was his marriage to the sister of a millionaire Saudi arms dealer.
He moved to the UK in 1974 and was already a public figure when he took over Harrods in 1985. In the 1990s and 2000s he regularly appeared as a guest on television shows. We also got to know a bit of his troubled character through the Netflix series, The Crown, and the events leading up to the car crash that killed his son Dodi and Princess Diana in 1997.
The women who spoke to the BBC described Mohammed Al Fayed, who has been trying to reach the royal family for years, in the darkest colours. “He was miserable,” says Sofia, who worked as his personal assistant from 1988 to 1991 and whom Al Fayed tried to rape more than once. “That makes me angry, people shouldn’t remember him the way they do. It was not as it seemed.”
The owner of Harrods regularly walked the floors of the department store and spotted young working women he found attractive, who he promoted to work in his offices, former employees have revealed. The attacks took place at the Harrods offices, Al Fayed’s London flat or on trips abroad, often to Paris at the Ritz Hotel, which he also owned, or Windsor Villa.
At Harrods it was clear what was going on: “We were all seeing some people walk through the door and thinking ‘poor thing, it’s your turn today’. We felt completely powerless to stop it,” says an employee who uses the pseudonym Alice.
“I was listening to the sounds he was making and I turned my head away”
Another girl who worked as a personal assistant at Harrods in the 1990s, who goes by the pseudonym Rachel, said she was summoned to Al Fayed’s luxury flat overlooking London’s Hyde Park one night. There were security staff and an office staffed by Harrods employees.
Al Fayed asked her to sit on his bed, then put his hand on her leg, making it clear what he wanted. “I remember feeling his body, his weight on top of me, and hearing him make those sounds… I just turned my head away and he raped me.”
The BBC spoke to 13 women who say Al Fayed sexually assaulted them in the same flat. Four of them, including Rachel, say they were raped. Sophia, who was sexually assaulted, described a nightmare. “I couldn’t leave. I had no home, no family to return to. I had to pay the rent,” he says with a chilling admission.
He became scarier on trips
Gemma, who worked as Fayed’s personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, says his behavior became more frightening during trips abroad. Her rape happened at Villa Windsor in the Forest of Boulogne. She woke up startled in her bedroom, with Al Fayed beside her wearing a silk robe.
“I told him ‘no, I don’t want to.’ He didn’t flinch, at one point he came on top of me and I really couldn’t move. I was face down on the bed and he was just pressing his body against me.”
After raping her and while she burst into tears, Al Fayed got up and told her imperatively to go wash herself with Dettol. “Obviously he wanted me to wipe every trace of him off me,” she said.
A further eight women described being sexually assaulted by Al Fayed at his properties in Paris and another five described the attacks as attempted rape.
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