London
CNN
—
High-end London department store Harrods said Thursday it was “deeply appalled” by allegations of abuse – including rape – by its former owner, the late billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed.
According to an in-depth BBC investigation, more than 20 former Harrods employees have accused Al Fayed, who died last year aged 94, of sexually assaulting them. One said she was assaulted when she was 15 and Al Fayed was 79. Harrods has acknowledged that Al Fayed was “intentional in abusing his power wherever he operated”.
The alleged assaults took place in a number of locations, including Al Fayed’s luxury London apartment building, the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which Al Fayed owned, and a Parisian villa that Al Fayed rented, called Villa Windsor, known as the primary residence of the Duke of Windsor, a former British king, and his wife, for decades.
Al Fayed’s son, Dodi Fayed, died in 1997 along with Princess Diana in a high-speed car crash in Paris.
Many of the women interviewed for the BBC investigation described being invited to a building owned by Al Fayed after finishing work at Harrods. They said they were invited under the pretext of security, and given a flat to avoid having to drive home late at night. Once there, the women said they were called to Al Fayed’s flat, where he would greet them in a silk dress and force himself on them.
Thirteen women said they were sexually assaulted in Al Fayed’s building, including four who said they were raped on the premises.
One woman, Sophia, said she was working in the womenswear department at Harrods when Al Fayed approached her and offered her a job in his office. A few days after starting her new job, Sophia said Al Fayed began “hugging” her and then tried to kiss her.
In another incident, Al Fayed invited her to his London flat, where she said he pushed her onto the sofa and then forced himself on top of her.
“I was strong and I started kicking him, and I knocked him down really hard,” said Sophia, who the BBC documentary identified only by her first name. “I thought he was going to rape me.”
“It was a horrible nightmare,” she continued. “It was really hard to get out of it. I can’t explain how exhausted it was every day.”
Several of the women allegedly assaulted by Al Fayed also said they worked at Harrods before being approached by the president.
“We were all standing there watching each other walk out the door thinking ‘poor girl, it’s you today’ and feeling totally powerless to stop it,” said a woman using the pseudonym Alice. She said she was 16 when she was attacked by Al Fayed.
Another woman told the BBC she was assaulted by Al Fayed in the Harrods boardroom in May 2008, when she was 15. She reported the incident to police, but no charges were brought against Al Fayed. He denied the allegations at the time.
Former Harrods employees told the BBC that Al Fayed’s treatment of women was known throughout the department store, with one former department manager saying it was “not even a secret”.
“I knew it and I think if I knew it, everyone knew it. Anyone who says otherwise is lying,” said former department director Tony Leeming.
“It was a joke and we laughed about it,” Leeming said. “It was like, ‘Oh, you know, this person is going to be a manager in five minutes because they went to Al Fayed’s office. Ha ha ha.’”
“Looking back on it now, it’s pretty disgusting,” he continued.
Harrods apologised to the victims in a statement, adding that “the Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010”.
“We are deeply shocked by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed Al Fayed,” the company said. “These are the actions of an individual who intended to abuse his power wherever he operated and we condemn them in the strongest terms. We also recognise that during this period, as a company, we have failed our employees who have been his victims and for this we sincerely apologise.”
Harrods said that last year “new information came to light” regarding historical allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed. Since then, it said, “our priority has been to resolve the complaints as quickly as possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved. This process is still available to all current and former Harrods employees.”
