Egyptian business Mogul and former Harrods owner, Mohamed Al Fayed, is facing grave allegations of rape, with five women who once worked for him accusing the late billionaire of sexual assault during his tenure at the luxury London department store.
According to a recent BBC documentary, Al Fayed, who died in London at the age of 94 in August 2023, is said to have committed these assaults between 1984 and 2010, the years he was in charge of Harrods.
The BBC’s new program, ‘Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods’, revealed that more than 20 former female employees have come forward with accusations of sexual abuse.
The documentary also alleged that Harrods not only failed to act on these claims but actively covered them up.
The current owners of the store have expressed their deep shock at the revelations and have issued an apology to the affected women.
One of the accused women, identified as Gemma, served as Al Fayed’s personal assistant from 2007 to 2009.
She recounts a disturbing incident in Paris where Al Fayed raped her at Villa Windsor in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne, describing how she woke up to find him attempting to get into bed with her despite her clear objections.
Dhe recalled, “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.”
Another woman, who was a teenager at the time, described being raped at Al Fayed’s Mayfair residence.
She characterized him as a “monster” and “sexual predator” who instilled fear among his staff, saying, “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?'”
Bruce Drummond, a barrister representing some of the ex-employees, criticized Harrods for its role in enabling the abuse.
He stated, “The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark. Any place of work has a duty to ensure the safety of its employees. Without question, the company failed these ladies. That’s why we step in. Because they just did nothing to actually prevent this. They did the opposite. They enabled it.”
The alleged assaults occurred not only in London but also in Paris at the Ritz hotel, which Al Fayed owned, in St Tropez, and in Abu Dhabi.
Harrods, now under new management, has promised to handle historical abuse claims with urgency and ensure that such behavior is never repeated.
They stated, “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.”
The Ritz hotel in Paris, formerly owned by Al Fayed, condemned the behavior described in the documentary and affirmed its commitment to values of respect and integrity.
Mohamed Al Fayed, originally from Alexandria and who moved to the UK in the 1960s, expanded his business empire across real estate, shipping, and construction, notably owning Harrods and the Ritz hotel.
His connections with prominent figures, including Diana, Princess of Wales, and the subsequent investigations into the deaths of Diana and his son Dodi in 1997, have been well-documented.
Al Fayed’s own investigations into the crash, which claimed the lives of Diana and Dodi, led him to promote various conspiracy theories, though a 2008 inquest concluded that their deaths resulted from Paul’s impaired driving and paparazzi interference.
