Mohamed al-Fayed, billionaire and friend of UK royalty, accused of rape

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. The BBC also talked to former staff members who said the company knew what was happening.

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

Al-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 father was portrayed as a gregarious businessman desperate to be accepted by the British establishment and who meddled in his son’s personal life.

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

The BBC documentary is not the first media investigation into allegations that he engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior. Among the previous reports is a 1995 Vanity Fair article, which included how women working close to him had to “undergo full internal exams and be grilled on their entire gynecological histories.” Al-Fayed launched a libel lawsuit that he ultimately dropped two years later.

British authorities have looked into some of the claims over the years. In 2009, prosecutors decided not to charge al-Fayed over allegations that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl. In 2013, police investigated an allegation by a woman who claimed al-Fayed had sexually attacked her after 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 legal team featured in the documentary, as well as some of the accusers, will hold a news conference Friday. A spokesperson for the team said they will discuss their legal claim against Harrods for “failing to provide a safe system of work for their employees.”

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 described a culture of fear and said that women were threatened and intimidated, which stopped them from speaking out. 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 al-Fayed. He sold the company to Qatar’s state-run investment arm for around $US2 billion ($3.5b) in 2010, according to media reports.

Harrods’s current owners said in a statement they are “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse.

The store asserted 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.”

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