Former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed has been accused of rape, with 5 feminine ex-employees alleging the late billionaire sexually assaulted them on the luxurious London division retailer.
A brand new BBC documentary says the Egyptian-born businessman – who died in London aged 94 final August – carried out the assaults throughout his time in control of the outlet between 1984 and its sale in 2010.
The company says greater than 20 feminine former employees at Harrods have come ahead to accuse him of sexual abuse.
The brand new programme known as Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods – says the agency itself not solely didn’t intervene to assist the alleged victims but additionally coated up their claims.
The shop’s present homeowners have now informed of being ‘totally appalled’ by the accusations and have apologised to the ladies affected.
Former Harrods proprietor Mohamed Al Fayed has been accused of sexual assault by a number of ladies together with one, Gemma, who labored as his private assistant between 2007 and 2009
A brand new BBC documentary says the Egyptian-born businessman – who died in London aged 94 final August – carried out the assaults whereas Harrods boss between 1984 and its sale in 2010
The company says greater than 20 feminine former employees at Harrods have come ahead to accuse Al Fayed (pictured) of sexual abuse
Bruce Drummond, a barrister representing among the ex-employees, stated: ‘The spider’s net of corruption and abuse on this firm was unbelievable and really darkish.’
The alleged assaults are stated to have occurred not solely in London but additionally in Paris and St Tropez in France and Abu Dhabi within the United Arab Emirates.
One of many ladies concerned, who says Fayed raped her at his condo in London’s Park Lane district, informed BBC investigators: ‘I made it apparent that I did not need that to occur.
‘I didn’t give consent. I simply needed it to be over.’
One other girl described being raped on the Mayfair deal with as a teen, describing workers at Harrods as being handled as his ‘playthings’.
She stated: ‘Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no ethical compass in anyway.
‘We have been all so scared. He actively cultivated worry. If he stated “bounce”, workers would ask, “How excessive?”‘
One in all his alleged victims was named as Gemma, who labored for Al Fayed as a private assistant between 2007 and 2009 – and tells how his behaviour would flip extra scary throughout work journeys overseas.
She says he raped her at Villa Windsor in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne, a former house of post-abdication King Edward VIII and his spouse Wallis Simpson.
She described waking as much as discover him making an attempt to get into mattress together with her, including: ‘I informed him, “No, I do not need you to”.
‘And he proceeded to simply hold making an attempt to get within the mattress, at which level he was form of on high of me and [I] actually could not transfer wherever.
‘I used to be form of face down on the mattress and he simply pressed himself on me.’
Fayed was accused of sexual assault when alive, however the BBC now says it believes many extra ladies may have been victims of him.
Harrods stated in an announcement to the BBC: ‘The Harrods of right this moment is a really completely different organisation to the one owned and managed by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010.
‘It’s one which seeks to place the welfare of our workers on the coronary heart of the whole lot we do.’
