A brutal and sustained campaign of sexual exploitation and violence against dozens of young women – that’s the devastating pattern of allegations emerging from the testimony of victims of former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
Yesterday, Bruce Drummond, the barrister representing almost 40 women who have now come forward, said: ‘The allegations against Al Fayed are assaults in varying degrees from inappropriate touching to very serious sexual assaults including rape – one young girl was just 16. One was 15.’
‘I think on the information we have, this is the worst case of corporate exploitation of young women the world has ever seen. In our view, it is more serious than [Jeffrey] Epstein, because it wasn’t opportunist, it was planned.
Mohamed Al Fayed, who died last year aged 94, is accused of raping and assaulting multiple women during his time as Harrods owner from 1985 to 2010
It involved a cover-up, threats, horrendous sexual acts, coerced rape, being locked away, trafficking. Some ladies say they were drugged. I can’t stress enough how dark this was and how badly it has affected these ladies. They are very damaged.’
I meet Sophia, 56, at her home in Staffordshire. It’s her account that first triggered the investigation into Al Fayed’s behaviour, and led directly to the BBC documentary aired yesterday exposing him.
Privately educated in Canterbury, Sophia began on the Harrods trainee ‘Way In’ scheme in 1988, a month after turning 20. ‘Mohamed first saw me in the press office and then again on the shop floor. He spoke to me a couple of times. Not long after, a member of his staff told me: “The chairman wants to see you in his office,” and so I went up there.’
Immediately after Al Fayed’s ‘inspection’ of Sophia, he insisted she begin working directly for him.
The assaults began not long afterwards. ‘He’d ask me to come into his office and would shut the door. He always had four security guards with him. Two would be standing outside and two would go to the security office to monitor every movement on cameras.’
He quickly ‘became physical, grabbing me when I went into the office’.
‘He’d try and kiss me, grabbing my boobs all the time. He’d put his hand up my skirt and pull me onto his lap. He’d say things like, “Come to Papa”.
‘I’d be trying to get away as he pulled me on top of him, sitting in his big white leather chair. He had this disgusting habit of squeezing my breasts, and saying “give me some milk from your titties”. It was bad enough when he did that when no one was in the room, but more than once he did that when others were in the room.
They’d be laughing, like it was a funny joke. It was humiliating and mortifying.’
Sophia describes how he controlled his female staff.
Sophia was hired by Harrods aged 20 in 1988 and was soon called to Al Fayeds office. He’d try and kiss me, grabbing my boobs all the time. Hed say things like, "Come to Papa"
Sophia described another assault by Al Fayed at Harrods. He was putting his hand up my skirt, while feeling my breasts. The security guys were standing right outside. I was helpless
‘He hated lip gloss and told the girls to wipe it off if they wore it. He liked Alice Bands and flat shoes. He had a preference for well-spoken English girls, particularly blondes. I was the odd one out at that time as a brunette.’
With sickening frequency, Al Fayed, who died last year, would attack her. On one occasion that sticks in her mind, he followed her into a side office and closed the door. ‘He pushed me very forcefully against the filing cabinets, trying to kiss me.
‘He was putting his hand up my skirt, while feeling my breasts. The security guys were standing right outside. I was helpless to do anything. That happened lots of times but, on that occasion, it was particularly frightening and forceful. I couldn’t get away.’
Why didn’t she leave? ‘This was my job, and I was scared. I’d been isolated and he’d warned me never to talk to anyone about him.’ Along with many other victims, she was made to sign a non disclosure agreement.
There was also an air of menace around Al Fayed, say the women. Former Met Chief Superintendent, John Macnamara, was his head of security.
‘Mohamed would send Macnamara out to follow people, so I knew what he was capable of. He listened into our conversations, all the phones were bugged, my phone on my desk was bugged.’
And yet Al Fayed’s behaviour was barely hidden.
‘The best days [at Harrods] were when he wasn’t there, but that was usually because he’d taken other girls on trips. The worst days were Saturdays because we were working on our own.
‘That’s when we got the worst kind of attention. I’d see other girls go down to the office, and think, “phew, it’s not me.” But at the same time I was terrified it was happening to these other girls. My heart sank for them, they were lambs to the slaughter.
We couldn’t report him to HR as the entire HR was controlled by him. If a blonde girl caught his eye in the store, he would ask to see them. The girls were sometimes very young, as young as 16. They had a horrific time.
‘We were going into work every day to be abused.’
Sophia recalls on one occasion being summoned after work to Al Fayed’s apartment at 60 Park Lane, where he ‘forced himself onto me’. ‘He was pushing down on top of me so that I was squashed into the sofa. He’s a big man. I really thought he was going to rape me. I was kicking him hard and managed to kick him off. I was absolutely terrified.’
All the women say that none of the doors on Al Fayed’s properties had locks. Sophia trembles as she recalls another occasion, in 1991, when she was staying at Villa Windsor, his house in Paris, and Al Fayed came into her room late at night. ‘I could feel his hands down my pyjamas and then I could feel his fingers penetrating me. I was terrified but absolute self-preservation kicked in.
‘I went crazy, like a banshee. There was no way in hell he was going to rape me. I was kicking and kicking. I kicked him hard in the crotch and he fell to the floor. This was one of two attempted rapes. The other happened in Scotland.
‘After this trip, I knew I had to get out. When I told him I was leaving, he seemed upset and angry, he didn’t want me to go. He said the weirdest thing to me: “You’re going to tell your grandchildren one day what a monster I am.” He knew.
‘I wasn’t very well mentally for a long time afterwards. I couldn’t work in fashion after that. I only took receptionist jobs where I could get out of the door quickly if I needed to. I couldn’t ever be closed in or trapped by anyone again.’
Lindsay Mason, 55, was ‘recruited’ by Harrods a year after Sophia. ‘It was 1989, I was 20 years old and had a prestigious job working in Sothebys’ books and manuscripts department. I went to get lunch in South Molton Street and was taking cover from the rain under the awning of a job agency. A guy came out and said I’d be ideal for a job. I told him I wasn’t looking for a job, but he took my details anyway.’
Later that day, Harrods sent a chauffeur to pick her up for an interview with a member of Al Fayed’s staff.
Lindsay Mason, now 55, was recruited by Harrods in 1989 and was forced to undergo an invasive examination by a male doctor. She says: He said he needed to check my ovaries
Some of Al Fayeds assaults are said to have been carried out at his Park Lane home as well as in Paris. Lindsay recalls an attack: He became very forceful and tried to rape me. It was brutal
‘I was interviewed in what we called the side office, a little suite off the management offices. She said the job would be confidential and star-studded. Al Fayed came in, gave me the once up and down and I was offered a job as PA reporting directly to him.
‘Next day I got a call and was told I needed a medical examination. It turned out to be an invasive internal examination carried out by a private male doctor. There was no chaperone. Because I was so young, I’d never had a smear test before and didn’t understand why I needed one for a secretarial job.
‘The doctor told me it was a perk of the job, and I was lucky that Al Fayed looked after his staff so well. He said he needed to check my ovaries, which was very painful, and check my breasts.’
In reality, she now believes, this was a test to check whether she had a sexually transmitted disease. The vast majority of the women were forced to undergo these tests, including those who said they were virgins.
‘On my first day, I was told to go to Al Fayed’s London home, 60 Park Lane. I went inside and there were all these glamorous young women with their hair blow dried, wearing Yves Saint Laurent suits, nipped in at the waist.
‘I felt like I was sitting in a harem. I did my first week at Harrods. By Friday, he started doing his weird stuff - he was grooming me.
‘He called me to his office and handed me an envelope with cash in it, I immediately thought “oh no”. I could see that I was expected to take it. I couldn’t refuse. With hindsight, I see that it was to make me complicit in his shady stuff.’
Not long after, needing a ski suit for a holiday, she was told by Al Fayed to pick one out and then meet him at the Park Lane apartment that evening where he would give it to her.
‘I went up in a lift to his big lounge with sofas and armchairs. I sat down on one of the sofas and he came and sat next to me. He was touching my breasts and hair and face. He seemed obsessed with my blonde hair.
I jumped up and tried to create space between us. He started chasing me around the room. A security guard was standing outside the door, and I knew no one was going to come to my rescue.
‘Then, thank God, someone came up in the lift and straight into the room. I left in sheer terror.
‘A few weeks later I was told I was going to Paris. I was taken from Harrods in a helicopter to Northolt to board Mohamed’s private jet.
‘There was another girl who I hadn’t met before. She seemed younger than me. She and I were given a lot of Dom Perignon champagne on the flight.
‘Later we were taken for dinner at the Ritz and then me and the other girl got a tap on the shoulder by security. We were taken to Al Fayed’s apartment behind the Arc de Triomphe, but then there was a knock on my door and I was told that Al Fayed would like to meet me and the other girl for a drink in a sitting room.
I went in but it was just him. I sat right at the other end of the sofa from him but he came and sat next to me. Within seconds he flipped into a predator, touching my face and hair.
‘I was still trying to be polite as I was so young and always respectful of authority. I asked him if the picture on his mantelpiece was Jasmine, his daughter. I was trying to bring him back to being human and not a monster, but he was a monster.
Sophia and Lindsay told their stories as the BBC aired a film revealing the allegations against Al Fayed. Here, Gemma described the ex-Harrods boss in the BBC investigation as a serial rapist
‘He became very forceful and tried to rape me and pushed his hands inside me. It was brutal. He was really hurting me. I was yelling but no one came to my aid. I thought that I was going to be raped. I suddenly gained superhuman strength.
‘I was a 20-year-old beanpole against this big 60-year-old man but as a horse rider, I was fit and strong. I was desperately kicking him off me, and managed to escape.
I ran into my bedroom. I barricaded one door with an armoire, and pushed the bed up against the other door. I was lying on the floor between the two, with my back against the armoire and my foot against the bed. I was trapped because I didn’t want to leave my position. I’m sure he could see everything as there were cameras in that room.’
From that moment on, Lindsay remembers nothing – what she calls the missing hours – not until she was back in the side office in Harrods, where for several hours she was locked inside. She remains traumatised that she was, she says, falsely imprisoned on the order of Al Fayed. She continues: ‘I managed to escape and ran for my life.’
She thinks now she was probably drugged.
‘Later, when I got home, I discovered I had a big bite on my back, I had bruises to my legs and around my genital area. I have no recollection of how I sustained the bite to my back.
‘I never reported the attempted rape to the police, I knew there was no point.’
Shortly afterwards she was sacked for the unlikely offence of using ‘the wrong staff entrance’.
This, too, was part of Al Fayed’s modus operandi, says barrister Bruce Drummond. ‘By the point they couldn’t take any more or told him to get lost, they were sacked, straight away. After that they would be threatened by security in Fayed’s security roster, ranging from “you’ll never work in London again” to them stating that they know where their families live.
‘This is also supported by the evidence given by security officers who have come forward.
‘The damage that has been caused is significant. These ladies lived with this for 20 odd years and buried it in some cases.
‘We hope that everyone who has been harmed in any way will come forward. and have set up a website (harrodssurvivors.com) with a number of helpful resources.’
Many of the women abused by Al Fayed are still too scared and traumatised to speak out in public. But they are beginning to tell their stories. In 2019, Lindsay was contacted by Sophia, and in 2020 Sophia reported the attempted rapes to the Metropolitan Police, giving a 31-page statement and video statement.
Yet the CPS dropped her case claiming Al Fayed’s age – he was then 91 - and poor health were mitigating factors. She also went to lawyers, and close to 40 other women have now joined her in looking at a potential claim against Harrods and the Al Fayed Estate.
‘The control he had was insane,’ says Lindsay now. ‘It’s messed up lives. I didn’t realise until these last few years how much damage he’s done to me.’
A statement from Harrods said: ‘We are utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed Al Fayed. 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 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.
‘This is why, since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.
‘While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.’
Commander Kevin Southworth, who leads on Public Protection for the Metropolitan Police, said: ‘We are aware of various allegations of sexual offences made over a number of years in relation to the late Mohamed Al Fayed which were reported to the Met.
‘Each one was investigated and, where appropriate, advice from the Crown Prosecution Service was sought. No charges resulted from these investigations.
‘As with any investigation, if any further information comes to light it will be assessed and investigated accordingly.’