Women accuse Mohamed al-Fayed, billionaire and friend of U.K. royalty, of rape

LONDON - Mohamed al-Fayed, the late, larger-than-life Egyptian billionaire, was accused of rape and sexual assault by former employees of Harrods, the landmark west London department store he owned.

In the BBC documentary, “Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods,” more than 20 women have come forward with allegations of sexual assault. BBC also talked to former staff members who said that the company knew what was happening.

Five of the women told the BBC that they were raped by Fayed while working at Harrods. The current owners of the store, which is something of a tourist destination, said that they had “failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologize.”

Fayed, once a friend of British royalty, is featured prominently in the last season of “The Crown.” His son, Dodi, was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, with whom he was in a romantic relationship. In the Netflix series, the elder Fayed was portrayed as a gregarious businessman desperate to be accepted by the British establishment and who meddled in his son’s personal life.

Fayed died in 2023, which may have made it easier for some women to come forward.

But this is not the first time that allegations have surfaced in the media, including in Vanity Fair, whose 1995 article alleged inappropriate behavior, including how women working close to him had to “undergo full internal exams and be grilled on their entire gynecological histories.” Fayed launched a libel lawsuit that he ultimately dropped two years later.

There were also other incidents. In 2009, prosecutors decided not to charge Fayed over allegations he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl. In 2013, he was interviewed by police when a woman claimed he had sexually attacked her following a job interview. He denied the allegations and was never charged.

The new allegations made to the BBC went further, with some people speaking out about rape and attempted rape.

The assaults were said to have taken place at Harrods, and at the Ritz Paris hotel and Villa Windsor, properties he owned in France.

Former staff members at Harrods told the BBC that the company failed to intervene. “We all watched each other walk through that door thinking, ‘you poor girl, it’s you today’ and feeling utterly powerless to stop it,” one person told the BBC. Others said that there was a culture of fear that stopped them from coming forward. The store’s former deputy director of security told the BBC that phones were bugged and that cameras were installed throughout the store.

Last year, Harrods started settling claims from women who said that they had been abused by Fayed. Fayed sold the company to Qatar’s state-run investment arm for around $2 billion in 2010, according to media reports.

Harrods’ current owners said in a statement they are “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse, adding that they “acknowledge that during this time as a business we failed our employees who were his victims, and for this we sincerely apologise.”

The store stressed that “the Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010” and that it now “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 Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved,” it said, adding that the process was “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.”