Mohamed Al Fayed, an Egyptian billionaire businessman who once owned one of the most exclusive luxury London department stores, has now been exposed as a shocking serial rapist, and the store he owned was accused of not only failing to intervene but of helping cover up the abuse allegations.
The alleged incidents took place in London, Paris, St Tropez, and Abu Dhabi.
BBC reported:
“The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted or raped them.
[…] ‘The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark’, says barrister Bruce Drummond, from a legal team representing a number of the women.”
[…] ‘I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over’, says one of the women, who says Fayed raped her at his Park Lane apartment.”
Another woman says she was a teenager when he raped her and called him ‘a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass’.
While the late Fayed did face sexual assault claims while he was alive, these present allegations are of unprecedented scale and seriousness.
Fayed – whose son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, had courted the Royal Family for years.
The BBC spoke to 13 women who allege Fayed sexually assaulted them at 60 Park Lane, with four of them saying they were raped.
“The Harrods owner would regularly tour the department store’s vast sales floors and identify young female assistants he found attractive, who would then be promoted to work in his offices upstairs – former staff, male and female, told us. The assaults would be carried out in Harrods’ offices, in Fayed’s London apartment, or on foreign trips – often in Paris at the Ritz hotel, which he also owned, or his nearby Villa Windsor property.”
Fayed’s abuse of women was an open a secret. And all the women the BBC spoke to felt intimidated at work – which had made it almost impossible for them to speak out.
“There were a number of attempts to expose Fayed before his death – notably by Vanity Fair in 1995 – with an article alleging racism, staff surveillance and sexual misconduct. This sparked a libel lawsuit. Mohamed Al Fayed later agreed to drop the case as long as all the further evidence the magazine had gathered of his sexual misconduct in preparation for a trial was locked away. Fayed’s settlement was negotiated by a senior Harrods executive.”
The new Harrods owners have been settling claims since 2023. When Fayed died, it was estimated that his worth was over £1bn. But the women say that money is not the motivation for them to speak out.
“’I’ve spent so many years being quiet and silent, not speaking up’, says Gemma, ‘and I hope talking about it now helps. We can all start feeling better and healing from it’.”
