Billionaire businessman Mohamed Al Fayed clawed his way from a poverty-stricken childhood in the backstreets of an Egyptian city to the top of British high society.
At the time of his death last year, the 94-year-old’s net worth was estimated to be £1.7 billion, accumulated through ventures such as owning the prestigious Harrods store, the Ritz in Paris, and Fulham Football Club.
But behind closed doors, Harrods staff were allegedly cherry-picking attractive women to be his personal assistants and leading them to Al Fayed’s office like ‘lambs to the slaughter’.
Brave survivors have united to detail Al Fayed’s harrowing abuse in the 25 years he owned the department store, revealing that they had to barricade doors with chairs to get away from him.
Five women said he would fly them to Paris under the guise of a work trip, take away their passports and put them in hotel rooms without locks.
Chilling claims say he monitored them with CCTV in their own homes, phone tapping and he threatened their families if they ever dared to speak out about the abuse.
Five ex-Harrods employees who spoke of Al Fayed’s alleged abuse are seen above. Pictured bottom left to right are Jen, Lindsay, and Catherine. Top left to right are Nicole and Gemma
Mohamed Al-Fayed (pictured) had a Ghislaine Maxwell-style ‘fixer’ who would procure pretty, young women off the streets for him to have sex with
Mohamed Al-Fayed pictured alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, at a charity event held at Harrods in London in 1996
Harrods (pictured) was an alleged hunting ground for Al-Fayed who targeted ‘vulnerable’ women before sexually assaulting them
BBC journalists looking into his predatory history gathered the stories of more than 20 women who said they had been abused by him, and ‘up to 200’ more have come forward since.
Al Fayed bought Harrods in 1985 and remained the owner until 2010, selling it to Qatar Holding.
One victim who works at the store said other staff who enabled his alleged disgusting behaviour are still working there.
The current owners said they are ‘utterly appalled’ by the allegations and have launched an internal investigation.
The women said they underwent an invasive medical procedure to get their jobs and it was sold as a MOT, telling them ‘aren’t you lucky, it would cost you thousands’.
One revealed that Al Fayed told her to call him ‘Papa’ – and she tried to use this to convince him to leave her alone, telling him she thought of him as a father figure.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, one of the brave women who worked at Harrods said Al Fayed summoned her to his office and told her that their uniform ‘wasn’t working’ for her.
Jen, who worked at Harrods for five years, said she suffered a number of sexual assaults
Catherine, who was hired in 2005, said he ‘ripped’ the buttons from her shirt and stuffed money down it as he ordered her to buy a new one
The Egyptian-born businessman – who died in London aged 94 last August – is alleged to have carried out the attacks while he was the Harrods boss between 1984 and its sale in 2010
Al Fayed dons a Victoria emerald and diamond tiara at Harrods’ New Year sale in 2001
Mohamed Al Fayed pictured with Michael Jackson in Harrods in 2000. The pair were friends – and Jackson accepted an invite to watch a game at Fulham FC, which Al Fayed owned
Catherine, who was hired in 2005, said he ‘ripped’ the buttons from her shirt and stuffed money down it as he ordered her to buy a new one.
Horrifically, she said this happened every day, along with Al Fayed sending her for a lip wax – all in her first week.
She – like many of the survivors – said they went to Paris and felt she was in danger from the allegedly predatory boss.
Catherine was terrified to discover her door didn’t lock and resorted to barricading it with a chair.
She said he forced himself upon her in his office and she fought him off, exclaiming: ‘I’m a PA and a PA only’. Her desk vanished the following day.
Gemma, who worked as a PA between 2007-2009, told the BBC she was raped by the billionaire.
Lindsay worked at Harrods for five months and claims she was sexually harassed, assaulted, ‘grouped on a daily basis’ and ‘trafficked’ to Paris where Al Fayed attempted to rape her
Nicole said: ‘This man was a billionaire. If you’re a 20-something girl on £20,000 – who is going to do anything?’
Gemma is among those accusing him and featured in a BBC documentary
She says 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
She said: It’s shocking, it’s disgusting. There could be thousands of women. In my time there were hundreds who were brought up to the offices and left crying.
‘Harrods can’t be the only place.’
Another of the survivors said the other employees who were meant to be the ‘checks and balances’ had failed them.
Nicole added: ‘This man was a billionaire. If you’re a 20-something girl on £20,000 – who is going to do anything?’
Jen, who worked at Harrods for five years, said she suffered a number of serious sexual assaults and attempted rape.
She kept the traumatic secret for 35 years and didn’t tell a soul because she was ‘deeply ashamed’ and felt it was her fault, that her skirt was ‘slightly too short, my gloss slightly too shiny’.
Jen initially didn’t want to be involved in the effort to expose Al Fayed because he was still alive and he still ‘felt like a threat’.
She said he gave her a flat to stay in so she would be safer than walking home alone at night – but unknown to her, he had installed had CCTV to watch her.
Mohamed Al-Fayed, former owner of Harrods and Fulham FC, is pictured here in 2018
Al Fayed (right) with Prince Charles (with his back to camera) and Diana during a Harrods-sponsored polo match in 1987
Mohamed Al Fayed (right) with son Dodi at a party for the film Hook in 1992
‘I was terrified to leave – they threatened me and my family if I did speak about it,’ she explained.
‘He said he would look after me, care for me. He asked me to call him Papa when I was alone with him. I said ‘you can’t do this I look at you like a father’ and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.’
Lindsay worked at Harrods for five months and claims she was sexually harassed, assaulted, ‘grouped on a daily basis’ and ‘trafficked’ to Paris where Al Fayed attempted to rape her.
She has no memory of the trip home but sustained significant injuries and assumes she was drugged.
She said she was imprisoned in the management offices by a colleague on the billionaire’s orders but thankfully managed to escape.
Lindsay slammed the department store for enabling the abuse, saying: ‘Who needs 25 PAs? Harrods led us like lambs to the slaughter for one purpose.’
She told of one occasion where – along with another colleague and three celebrities – they had dinner at Al Fayed’s Ritz hotel in Paris.
The two employees were ‘tapped on the shoulder’ and led to their rooms, which they assumed would be in the hotel.
Disturbingly, they were instead led to his flat. Lindsay recalled that the doors locked behind them so they couldn’t escape on the ‘most terrifying night’ of her life.
Years later, there is a vast amount of things which trigger her trauma, especially Gypsy Kings music because Al Fayed ‘was always playing it’.
In the last week, hundreds of women have come forward with harrowing tales of abuse at the billionaire’s hands.
It was so horrific that lawyers representing his victims have compared him to sexual predators Jimmy Savile and Jeffrey Epstein.
Princess Diana and Al Fayed during the Harrods Polo Cup at Smith’s Lawn in 1987
The late Queen is pictured with Mohammed Al Fayed in Windsor
Barrister Bruce Durmmond (left) and Dean Armstrong KC, who represented the female former employees of Harrods
Pictured is one of Al-Fayed’s alleged victims, who went by the name Natacha (right) hugging one of her lawyers at the press conference
They have warned the true extent of Al-Fayed’s alleged offending could go further, ‘with victims all over the world’ – with investigations now taking place into other businesses owned by Al-Fayed, such as Fulham Football Club.
Barrister Dean Armstrong KC told a press conference the case of Al-Fayed ‘combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein’.
He said: ‘I have many years of practice… I have never seen a case as horrific as this.
‘This case combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein.
‘Savile because in this case, as in that, the institution, we say, knew about the behaviour.
‘Epstein because in that case, as in this, there was a procurement system in place to source the women and girls – as you know there are some very young victims.
‘And Weinstein, because it was a person at the very top of the organisation who was abusing his power.
‘We will say plainly, Mohamed Al-Fayed was a monster.’
One of Al Fayed’s alleged victims told the press conference how the billionaire businessman was ‘highly manipulative’ and left her ‘petrified’ as he abused her.
In chilling testimony, the woman – known as only Natacha – said joining Harrods was like ‘walking into a lion’s den’ and said Al-Fayed ‘preyed on the most vulnerable’.
Branding Al-Fayed a ‘sick predator’, she said: ‘Mohamed was clever and highly manipulative.
One of Mohamed Al-Fayed’s alleged victims, who went by the name Natacha (pictured), told the press conference the billionaire businessman was ‘highly manipulative’.
One of Mr Al-Fayed’s accusers, Natacha (right), no surname given, who featured in ‘Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods’ is reassured by American Attorney Gloria Allred after speaking during a press conference
Speaking about the alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of Al-Fayed, Natacha continued: ‘Mohamed Al-Fayed, a sick predator, lured me in by using the same modus operandi he used time and time again.
‘I was subjected to Aids and STD testing without consent, and now believe in hindsight, I was checked for my purity.’
Speaking about what happened in meetings with Al-Fayed, Natacha said: ‘These private meetings turned into more of a forced kiss, his hands gripping your face to his lips or pulling you down on his lap, where his hands were free to explore any part of your body that he wished.
‘These incidents lasted seconds, but the fear instilled left me paralysed.’
Mr Armstrong KC said it is time Harrods ‘took responsibility’ and ‘set matters right’.
He told the press conference: ‘We are here to say publicly and to the world, or to Harrods in front of the world, that it is time that they took responsibility, and it is time that they set matters right, and that is something they should do as soon as possible.
‘They need to face up to accept the responsibility, that they have full culpability for the abuse that these women suffered.
‘Today, we are going to set out our claim and how our claim shows an abject failure of corporate responsibility and a failure to provide a safe system of work.’
Al-Fayed was compared to sexual predators Jimmy Savile (left) and Jeffrey Epstein (right).
Some of Fayed’s assaults are said to have been carried out at his Park Lane property in London
The current owners of Harrods said in a statement: ‘We are utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed Al Fayed. These were the actions of an individual who was intent on abusing his power wherever he operated and we condemn them in the strongest terms.
‘We also acknowledge that during this time as a business we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologise.
‘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.
‘This is why, 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, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees – please go to https://response.harrods.com for further information.
‘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.’
They later added as more claims emerged: ‘As part of our due diligence there is an ongoing internal review (supported by external counsel) including looking at whether any current staff were involved in any of the allegations either directly or indirectly.
‘In addition, the Harrods board has established a non-executive committee of the board to further consider the issues arising from the allegations.
‘Harrods is also in direct communication with the Metropolitan Police to ensure we are offering our assistance with any of their relevant inquiries.’
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