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An investigation by the BBC has exposed over a dozen allegations of rape and sexual assault at the hands of Mohamed Al-Fayed, former owner of the Harrods department store and father of Dodi Fayed, who died alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in a 1997 car crash.
Al-Fayed died last year at the age 94. The billionaire businessman faced allegations of sexual assault while he was alive, but the BBC documentary Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, which airs Thursday, represents the most comprehensive collection of allegations to date.
More than 20 women who used to be employed by Al-Fayed told the BBC that he sexually assaulted them. Many of them say they were raped.
Harrods, which was sold by Al-Fayed to the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar in 2010, says it is “utterly appalled” by the allegations against its former owner and apologized to his alleged victims.
“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 department store wrote in a media statement, adding that the business today is “a very different organisation” than it once was.
Harrods is facing several civil claims from women who say they were abused by Al-Fayed and that Harrods helped cover up his alleged crimes. The department store says it is their “priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved.”
The allegations
Ex-employees of Al-Fayed told the BBC that it was an open secret he was abusing women, but the former Harrods boss cultivated a culture of fear at the luxury department store that prevented women from speaking out.
Men and women who used to work for him said Al-Fayed would regularly tour the Harrods sales floor, looking for young women employees he found attractive. Those women would then be promoted to work in his offices upstairs.
Harrods department store in Knightsbridge in London, England, in 2012.
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Alleged assaults occurred in the Harrods offices and in Al-Fayed’s numerous properties, including a London apartment on Park Lane, his Villa Windsor property in Paris and the Ritz hotel in Paris, which Al-Fayed owned.
Thirteen women told the BBC that Al-Fayed sexually assaulted them at his Park Lane address. Four of them say they were raped, including one of his personal assistants who worked for Harrods in the 1990s.
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The employee, “Rachel” — whose name was changed to protect her identity — said she was called to Al-Fayed’s luxury apartment after work one night. Al-Fayed asked her to sit on the bed, put his hand on her leg and then got on top of her.
“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,” she said. “He raped me.”
Another woman, who said she was a teen when Al-Fayed raped her at the Park Lane apartment, said that the billionaire was a “a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass whatsoever,” and that the staff at Harrods were his “playthings.”
“We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said ‘jump,’ employees would ask ‘how high.’”
Another one of Al-Fayed’s personal assistants, identified only as “Gemma,” said her boss raped her during a work trip abroad while she was staying at this Villa Windsor property.
“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,” Gemma said. “I was kind of face down on the bed and he just pressed himself on me.”
Gemma said Al-Fayed told her to aggressively wash herself with Dettol, a brand of antiseptic cleaner, after the alleged assault.
“Obviously he wanted me to erase any trace of him being anywhere near me,” she said.
‘Culture of fear’
One Harrods department manager, Tony Leeming, who worked at the store from 1994 to 2004, said it “wasn’t even a secret” that Al-Fayed was abusing employees.
“The abuse of women, I was aware of it when I was on the shop floor,” Leeming said. “And I think if I knew, everybody knew. Anyone who says they didn’t are lying, I’m sorry.”
“We were aware that he had this very strong interest in young girls,” said Eamon Coyle, an ex-deputy director of security.
Employees were scared to speak out, however, because of allegations that Al-Fayed had bugged the store with phone taps and cameras. Coyle alleges that Al-Fayed “bugged everybody that he wanted to bug,” and that part of his job as security manager was to listen to tapes of recorded calls.
Another employee told the BBC: “There was most definitely a culture of fear across the whole store — from the lowliest of the low, to the most senior person.”
Al-Fayed’s public image
Originally from Egypt, Al-Fayed moved to the U.K. in 1974 and became a well-known public figure, appearing on chat shows on prime-time TV. His eldest son Dodi became internationally known as Princess Diana’s boyfriend, after her divorce from now-King Charles.
Al-Fayed even appears as a character in the Netflix series The Crown, which dramatizes the recent history of the British royal family. Al-Fayed was portrayed — quite favourably, and as a doting, dedicated father — by actor Salim Daw.
Al-Fayed’s celebrity, thanks to his media appearances and proximity to the royal family, lent him an image as a “pleasant and gregarious” businessman, the BBC reports. But one of the alleged victims says he was “vile” and shouldn’t be remembered in a positive light.
Mohamed Al-Fayed stands beside Diana, Princess of Wales, with Prince Charles during the Harrods Polo Cup at Smith’s Lawn in Windsor, U.K., in July 1987.
Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images
The woman, identified only as “Sophia,” said she worked as Al-Fayed’s personal assistant from 1988 to 1991 and that her boss tried to rape her more than one.
“He was vile,” Sophia said. “That makes me angry, people shouldn’t remember him like that. It’s not how he was.”
Sophia said she was sexually assaulted and felt there was nothing she could do against her powerful boss.
“I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have a (family) home to go back to, I had to pay rent,” she said. “I knew I had to go through this and I didn’t want to. It was horrible and my head was scrambled.”
Vanity Fair and ITV ran exposés into Al-Fayed before his death, in 1995 and 1997, respectively, though the investigations did little to tarnish Al-Fayed’s reputation in the long run.
When the billionaire businessman died in August 2023, tributes flooded in. The actor who portrayed him on The Crown wrote he was “deeply saddened” to hear of his passing and described Al-Fayed as a “giant, who came from nothing and became everything.”
Fourteen of the women who the BBC spoke to have brought civil lawsuits against Harrods for damages, with their lawyers arguing that the store was responsible for the dangerous workplace.
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If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse or is involved in an abusive situation, please visit the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime for help. They are also reachable toll-free at 1-877-232-2610.