MOHAMED Al Fayed has been accused of raping and sexually assaulting a string of women who worked at Harrods.
Five women said they were raped by the Egyptian billionaire, who died last year aged 94, and a further 20 female employees allege Al Fayed sexually assaulted them.
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The women who worked at Harrods from the late 1980s to 2000s said assaults were carried out at the company’s offices, in Fayed’s London apartment, or on foreign trips often in Paris at the Ritz hotel, according to an investigation by the BBC.
It is claimed that the Harrods tycoon would regularly tour the department store’s sales floors to identify young female assistants he found attractive before isolating and attacking them.
The new documentary – called Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods – hears claims that the store not only failed to intervene but also helped cover up allegations against Al Fayed.
Harrods’ current owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations, stressing the company today is “very different”.
One of his alleged victims named Gemma, who worked for Al Fayed as a personal assistant between 2007 and 2009, told how his behaviour would turn more scary during work trips abroad.
- One woman claimed Al Fayed told her to wash herself with Dettol to “erase traces” of him being near her.
- Another woman described him as a “monster” with “no moral compass”
- The Harrods owner would regularly tour the department store’s vast sales floors and identify young female assistants he found attractive
- His former personal assistant alleged that the Egyptian billionaire had tried to rape her more than once
She claims he raped her at Villa Windsor in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne, a former home of post-abdication King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson.
Gemma described waking up to find him attempting to get into bed with her, adding: “I told him, “No, I don’t want you to”.
“And he proceeded to just keep trying to get in the bed, at which point he was kind of on top of me and (I) really couldn’t move anywhere.
“I was kind of face down on the bed and he just pressed himself on me.”
She says after the Harrods tycoon raped her she cried, while he got up and told her aggressively to wash herself with Dettol.
“Obviously he wanted me to erase any trace of him being anywhere near me,” she explains.
Another woman described being raped at the Mayfair address as a teenager, describing staff at Harrods as being treated as his “playthings”.
She said: “Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass whatsoever.
“We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said “jump”, employees would ask, “How high?”‘
She added: “I think Mohamed Al Fayed is a rapist – he is a serial rapist.”
Bruce Drummond, a barrister from a legal team representing a number of the women, said: “The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark.”
Speaking to the BBC, one of his alleged victims, Sophia, who worked as his personal assistant from 1988 to 1991, said he tried to rape her more than once. She said: “He was vile.”
After he featured in two recent series of Netflix’s The Crown, she spoke of her anger at his portrayal as a pleasant and gregarious character.
Sophia, who didn’t give her second name, said: “That makes me angry, people shouldn’t remember him like that. It’s not how he was.”
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Another alleged victim, Rachel, not her real name, who was 19 at the time, stayed in one of Al-Fayed’s apartments instead of taking a taxi home on his insistence after working late on Harrods business.
The Egyptian billionaire then invited her to his personal apartment in London, where he asked her to sit on the bed, with his hand on her leg and a firm grip, she says.
She said: “I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over.
“I remember feeling his body on me, the weight of him. Just hearing him make these noises. And just going somewhere else in my head.”
Rachel told the BBC: “He raped me. Afterwards, you blame yourself. You’re there to do a job and this is your boss standing there in front of you in a dressing gown.
“And so even when you’re trying to get out of the situation, I’m trying not to offend him.”
Al Fayed had been accused of groping and sexually assaulting female employees across his lifetime, including a rape allegation which was investigated by police in 2015 but did not lead to any charges.
Born in Egypt,Al Fayed was a businessman in the Middle East before moving to the UK in the 1970s.
He took control of Harrods in 1985, and purchased the Ritz hotel in Paris in 1979.
Harrods said in a statement to the BBC: “The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010.
“It is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.
“Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible.
“This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.
“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”
Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods airs on BBC Two at 9pm tonight and is available on BBC iPlayer now.
The accompanying new five-part season of the World of Secrets podcast is on BBC Sounds.
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Who was Mohamed Al Fayed?
MOHAMED AL FAYED was best known as the owner of luxury department store Harrods and father of Princess Diana’s boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed.
The billionaire died in August 2023 at the age of 94, almost 26 years to the day after the passing of his son.
Heini Wathen married Mohamed Al-Fayed in 1985 and the couple went on to have four children together; Jasmine, Karim, Camilla and Omar.
Heini and Mohamed’s romance began after they were introduced by Mohamed’s son Dodi.
The couple are portrayed by Hanna Alström and Salim Daw in the sixth and final season of Netflix’s The Crown.
Before marrying Heini, Mohamed had been wed once before.
In 1954 he tied the knot with Saudi Arabian author Samira Khashoggi.
The pair split after two years but welcomed son Dodi together in 1955.
Dodi is Samira and Mohamed’s only child, but Mohamed went on to have four more kids with his second wife.
Prior to his death, Mohamed lived in a house near Oxted with his wife Heini.
The family estate in Surrey, named Barrow Green Court, is where both Mohamed and his son Dodi are buried.
His eldest son – Dodi – was killed alongside Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997.