Former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed has been accused of rape, with five female ex-employees alleging the late billionaire sexually assaulted them at the luxury London department store.
A new BBC documentary says the Egyptian-born businessman – who died in London aged 94 last August – carried out the attacks during his time in charge of the outlet between 1984 and its sale in 2010.
The corporation says more than 20 female former workers at Harrods have come forward to accuse him of sexual abuse.
The new programme called Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods – says the firm itself not only failed to intervene to help the alleged victims but also covered up their claims.
The store’s current owners have now told of being ‘utterly appalled’ by the accusations and have apologised to the women affected.
Former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women including one, Gemma, who worked as his personal assistant between 2007 and 2009
A new BBC documentary says the Egyptian-born businessman – who died in London aged 94 last August – carried out the attacks while Harrods boss between 1984 and its sale in 2010
The corporation says more than 20 female former workers at Harrods have come forward to accuse Al Fayed (pictured) of sexual abuse
Bruce Drummond, a barrister representing some of the ex-employees, said: ‘The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark.’
The alleged attacks are said to have happened not only in London but also in Paris and St Tropez in France and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
One of the women involved, who says Fayed raped her at his apartment in London’s Park Lane district, told BBC investigators: ‘I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen.
‘I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over.’
Another woman described being raped at the Mayfair address as a teenager, describing staff at Harrods as being treated as his ‘playthings’.
She said: ‘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?”‘
One of his alleged victims was named as Gemma, who worked for Al Fayed as a personal assistant between 2007 and 2009 – and tells how his behaviour would turn more scary during work trips abroad.
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 described waking up to find him attempting to get into bed with her, adding: ‘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.
‘I was kind of face down on the bed and he just pressed himself on me.’
Fayed was accused of sexual assault when alive, but the BBC now says it believes many more women could have been victims of him.
Harrods said in a statement to the BBC: ‘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.’
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