At least 100 women are feared to have been sexually abused by Mohamed Al Fayed. Ex-staff at the late tycoon’s luxury Harrods store in England, one then just 15, allege they were attacked across 24 years. Five accuse him of rape.
But a new BBC documentary claims Al Fayed deployed an army of aides to silence his alleged victims and used his power and wealth to evade justice.
More than 20 former workers have accused Al Fayed, whose son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside girlfriend Princess Diana, of sex abuse. Five claimed they were raped. He allegedly deployed Harrods staff, a former senior Met Police officer, lawyers and PR agents to threaten his victims who he spied on using hidden cameras and bugging equipment.
One woman claims Al Fayed’s sexual abuse was well known during his time in charge of Harrods from 1986 to 2010 when he sold it. She said: “We all watched each other walk through that door thinking, ‘You poor girl, it’s you today’ and feeling powerless to stop it.”
A number of the women, who all go by pseudonyms in the documentary, said they were “required” to have invasive examinations for sexually transmitted diseases. Katherine, an executive assistant in 2005, said: “There is no benefit in anybody knowing what my sexual health is unless you’re planning to sleep with somebody, which I find quite chilling now.”
Rachel claimed she was raped at one of Al Fayed’s apartments. She said: “I made it obvious I didn’t want that to happen. I remember feeling his body on me. Just hearing him make these noises.”
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Ellie was 15 when she told police in 2008 Al Fayed groped and tried to kiss her in Harrods. She claims the case was dropped after details were leaked by the Met Police who allegedly wiped evidence from her phone. Ellie said of Al Fayed’s reaction when she resisted him: “He went into a rage and started screaming at me. I was a child when this happened. I was 15 and he was nearly 80.”
Gemma, a former personal assistant to Al Fayed, accused him of rape. She said going to the police “was not an option” and added: “He felt like such a powerful man with so much money and so many professional people around him who were facilitating everything he did.”
Another of Al Fayed’s assistants, Sophia, claimed he tried to rape her more than once. She said his jolly appearance was a carefully cultivated act and added: “That makes me angry, people shouldn’t remember him like that. It’s not how he was. He was vile.”
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Sohpie’s TV producer husband Keaton has been investigating Al Fayed for six years and believes he targeted more than 100 victims. He said: “I’ve spoken to dozens I know to be affected, and I want to speak to, women in triple figures.”
Another woman claimed she was raped as a teenager by Al Fayed and said staff at Harrods were his “playthings”. She added: “Mohammed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass. We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said ‘jump’ employees would ask ‘how high’?” Al Fayed was described by one alleged victim as an “apex predator”. She said: “He enjoyed the chase and enjoyed the fear in my eyes. I was consumed with fear.”
Al Fayed allegedly used head of security John Macnamara to threaten women who made sex claims. The former Met Police chief superintendent was described as a “nasty piece of work” by an ex-Harrods colleague who said “He would use his power as an ex-copper. I know Macnamara knocked on someone’s door and threatened a girl.”
A victim who had spoken to Vanity Fair in 1995 about Al Fayed said Macnamara visited her, after which she never again spoke of the claims. She added: “He said I wasn’t to be involved in that article and if I went against his advice to be aware he knew where my parents lived. It turned me cold.”
Macnamara died in 2019. Former Harrods manager Tony Leeming, who worked there from 1994 to 2004 claimed said Al Fayed’s abuse “wasn’t even a secret”. He said: “If I knew, everybody knew. Anyone who says they didn’t are lying.”
Former director of security Eamon Coyle added: “We were aware he [Al Fayed] had this very strong interest in young girls.” He also claimed Al Fayed Al-Fayed “bugged everybody that he wanted to bug “and that part of his job was to listen to recordings.
It is understood three women came forward to the Met in 2018, 2021 and 2023, but the CPS was never asked to consider charges. Investigations by the Sunday Mirror in 2015, Channel 4’s Dispatches in 2017 and Channel 4 News a year later also revealed claims of abuse.
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The string of alleged attacks are said to have taken place at Al Fayed’s Park Lane apartment in London, Villa Windsor in Paris, St Tropez and Abu Dhabi. Convicted sex offender Max Clifford was secretly filmed boasting about how he had kept allegations against Al-Fayed out of the media. The former publicist, who died in jail in 2017, said: “He’s a randy old sod. I’ve stopped, this stopped that.”
Al Fayed died aged 94 in August last year. Harrods’ owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations and apologised for the fact that his victims had been failed.
Met Commander Kevin Southworth said: “We are aware of various allegations of sexual offences made over a number of years in relation to the late Mohammed Al Fayed which were reported to us.
“If further information comes to light it will be assessed.”
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