Accuser says Mohamed al Fayed was a ‘predator’ who ‘preyed on the most vulnerable’
Mohamed al Fayed was a “predator” who “preyed on the most vulnerable”, one of his alleged victims has said.
The billionaire was described as a “monster enabled by a system that pervaded Harrods” by lawyers representing 37 alleged victims of sexual abuse at a press conference in London.
Dean Armstrong KC said the case “combines some of the most horrific elements” of those including Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein.
The Egypt-born businessman, who died last year at the age of 94, took control of the luxury department store in 1985 and later expanded his business interests to include the Paris Ritz and Fulham Football Club.
One of his alleged victims, Natacha, said she was a “young, naive and totally innocent” 19-year-old when she moved to London.
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‘Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster’ says Dean Armstrong KC.
She believed she had been given “the chance of a lifetime” when she got a job at Harrods in central London and thought it seemed “entirely innocent” when she was offered extra money and gifts to take home to her parents.
“Unbeknownst to me, I had walked into a lion’s den, a lair of cover-ups, deceit, lies, manipulation, humiliation and gross sexual misconduct,” Natacha said, describing Fayed as a “predator”, who “preyed on the most vulnerable”.
She said she was summoned to Fayed’s private apartment one night “on the pretext of a job review” before “the door was locked behind me”.
“I saw his bedroom door partially open – there were sex toys on view” she said. “I felt petrified. I perched myself at the very end of the sofa and then… my boss, the person I worked for, pushed himself onto me.”
Alleged victim of sexual abuse: ‘I had walked into a lions den’
‘Scared and sick’
Natacha said that after she managed to “kick herself free”, he laughed at her and told her “never to breathe a word of this to anyone”, leaving her feeling “scared and sick”.
More than 20 female former employees have spoken of suffering assaults and physical violence at properties in London and Paris in an investigation published by the BBC.
Read more: Egyptian tycoon was never far from controversy
Five of the women said they had been raped by Fayed, while another has now come forward to claim she was subjected to a “sickening” sexual assault by the billionaire.
Harrods said in a statement on Thursday it was “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse and apologised to Fayed’s alleged victims.
The department store has also set up a page on its website inviting former employees to come forward if they have allegations.
The legal team involved in a civil claim against Harrods for allegedly failing to provide a safe system of work for its employees said they aimed to seek justice for the victims of a “vast web of abuse”.
‘Corporate exploitation’
Barrister Bruce Drummond told the press conference it is “one of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation” that he and “perhaps the world has ever seen”.
Most of the victims were aged 19 to 24, while some were as young as 15 or 16, and were specially selected for their roles before being told to undergo private invasive medical examinations, lawyers said.
Pic: AP
US lawyer Gloria Allred, who has represented accusers of Weinstein, R Kelly and Bill Cosby, said the allegations include serial rape, attempted rape, sexual battery and sexual abuse of minors.
She said there was “something rotten at the core of Harrods”, where “underneath the glitz and glamour was a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment”.
The alleged attacks are said to have taken place at locations including the London department store, as well as the Ritz in Paris and the former Duke of Windsor’s residence in the French capital.
‘Terror was reinforced by threats’
Lawyers said they were aware of allegations made by employees at other businesses owned by Fayed and are representing women who worked at the Ritz.
“He used his wealth and his power to manipulate and control female victims for his sexual pleasure,” Ms Allred said.
Most of his alleged victims were “terrified and felt they had no place to turn,” she said and their “terror was reinforced by threats, surveillance and phone tapping”.
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Mr Armstrong said the claim shows an “abject failure of corporate responsibility” by Harrods and “it is time they took responsibility”.
“This case combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein,” he said.
“Savile because in this case, as in that, the institution, we say, knew about the behaviour.
“Epstein because in that case, as in this, there was a procurement system in place to source the women and girls – as you know there are some very young victims.
“And Weinstein because it was a person at the very top of the organisation who was abusing his power.
“We will say plainly, Mohamed al Fayed was a monster.”
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Fayed had previously been accused of sexually assaulting and groping multiple women, but a 2015 police investigation did not lead to any charges.
He fought a long campaign following the death of his son, the film producer Dodi Fayed and Princess Diana in 1997, alleging the Paris car crash was not an accident but had been orchestrated by the British security services.
‘Utterly appalled’
Harrods said in a statement: “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 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 Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved.”
Metropolitan Police Commander Kevin Southworth 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.”
Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty. And besides, the pig likes it.
Looking at the festive ding-dong that’s broken out between Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, you do wonder if the Tory leader should take on board this famous quote – because there was only ever going to be one winner from this spat.
The Reform UK leader has spent the thick end of three decades dragging his political opponents into fights that ultimately benefit his cause. This is no different.
What would have been a relatively low-key Christmas stunt has been elevated into literal front page news.
Reform UK insiders say that, in turn, is driving more people to the party and pushing up their member count further.
Nigel Farage has spent his career dragging opponents into fights. Pic: Reuters
Part of this is down to news editors grabbing on to any bit of politics that’s around during the quiet period between Christmas and New Year.
Why Badenoch and her team didn’t clock this and hold back will likely bewilder some in her party.
An argument the Tories should have swerved
What’s more, the Tory leader is also currently on the back foot regarding her central accusation that the Reform membership number is fake.
Reform agreed to show Sky News details of their account on NationBuilder – a platform that manages memberships and donations for many political parties.
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From September – Farage: I could become prime minister
The number of active memberships in the account portal matched the figure on the ticker – with their website count growing in size shortly after the NationBuilder tally increased.
Sky News also conducted its own analysis on the ticker and found nothing suspicious as it stands (read the full analysis here).
Kemi Badenoch has said Reform changed the coding when people began to point out the alleged discrepancy, but has yet to provide any evidence to back this up.
Either way, this is still an argument the Tories should probably have swerved.
All politicians need to pick their battles
Yes, signed-up members mean more income for a party, but they don’t necessarily translate into wider electoral success. After all, Labour’s membership surged under Jeremy Corbyn, but he still lost two elections.
But that’s not to say both main parties shouldn’t be looking very closely in their rearview mirror at Reform.
The party’s reaction to this row shows a far more professional behind-the-scenes operation than the previous, more ramshackle incarnations of the Farage-led political machine.
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Is Reform UK winning the ‘bro vote’?
Talk to long time allies of the Reform leader, and even they sound somewhat surprised by how slick their project has got.
They also point to electoral milestones on the horizon where the party’s results at the ballot box can be objectively tracked – beginning with May’s local elections next year and running through the Welsh Assembly vote in 2026.
There’ll be many more attempts by Nigel Farage to wrestle with his political opponents before then.
The task for the Tory and indeed Labour leaders is to pick their fights and judge how dirty they are prepared to get.
UK
Nigel Farage threatens legal action if Kemi Badenoch doesn’t apologise for saying membership ticker was ‘fake’
Nigel Farage has threatened to take legal action against Tory leader Kemi Badenoch if she does not apologise for accusing him of publishing a “fake” ticker showing Reform UK’s membership increasing to overtake the Conservatives.
The Reform UK leader has reacted furiously to Ms Badenoch’s assertion that he was “manipulating [his] own supporters” with a ticker that is “coded to tick up automatically” after it showed the insurgent right-wing party had gone past 131,680 members – the number of eligible Conservative Party members in its leadership election in the autumn.
He is demanding an apology from Ms Badenoch for the “accusations of fraud and dishonesty” that he labelled “disgraceful”, and said he is “not going to take it lying down”.
Asked by Sky News in a call with journalists if he is going to sue the Tory leader for libel, Mr Farage said: “I’m going to take some action in the next couple of days. I’ve got to decide exactly what it is, but I’m certainly not going to take it lying down.”
“I think it’s an absolutely outrageous thing for her to have said,” he continued. “I know she’s got a very bad temper. I know she’s well known for lashing out at people, but I am not at all happy, and I’m going to take some action.”
He added that he will confirm within two days exactly what this action will be if she does not apologise for the “intemperate outburst”.
Analysis: Badenoch needs to pick her battles
Reform showed Sky News the coding used to link the ticker to the member count within their account on the platform NationBuilder. The demonstration provided strong evidence that the ticker was not automated. Scroll down for the full analysis.
A Tory source told Sky News: “Fake Farage is clearly rattled that his Boxing Day Publicity Stunt is facing serious questions over a fake clock and hundreds of ‘members’ seemingly joining in the middle of the night.
“Like most normal people around the UK, Kemi is enjoying Christmas with her family and looking forward to taking on the challenges of renewing the Conservative Party in the New Year.”
‘It’s a fake’
The row started after Reform UK said on Boxing Day that it officially had more members than the Conservative Party, which Mr Farage, party leader and MP for Clacton-on-Sea, hailed as a “historic moment”, describing his party as “the real opposition”.
Reform UK also shared a video of the membership tracker being projected on to the Conservative Party headquarters in London.
But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the party of issuing misleading figures: “Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel?. It’s not real. It’s a fake… [the website has been] coded to tick up automatically.”
Posting on X, she added that the Tories had “gained thousands of new members since the leadership election”.
Reform UK hit back at Ms Badenoch, publishing a screenshot of an online register claiming to show “active memberships”.
Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf also waded into the row, claiming that people whose memberships of the Tory party had lapsed voted in the autumn leadership election that saw Ms Badenoch elected to the role.
In a call with journalists earlier, he repeated the assertion, and after putting out a call on social media for people to contact him if they had voted in the leadership election but are no longer party members, he said he has received “just so many” that he has not yet been able to verify their claims.
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Ms Badenoch and the Conservative Party have been contacted for comment.
Reform UK has said it will submit to an audit of its membership numbers by one of the “big four” accountancy firms if the Tories do the same.
Farage gets personal
Speaking to journalists earlier, Mr Farage was very critical of Ms Badenoch personally, saying her claim that their membership number ticker had been faked “reflects her personality”.
He labelled her “aggressive” and “liable to lashing out”, and said he thinks she wrote her tweet out of a “slight sense of anger”.
“She’s got to fully disprove this, and she’s going to find life a lot more difficult and bitterly regret putting this out on Boxing Day afternoon,” he added.
A man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder after a car collided with a group of people in London’s West End on Christmas Day.
Anthony Gilheaney, 30, will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday and has also been charged with causing serious injury by driving whilst disqualified, driving a motor vehicle dangerously and possession of a bladed article in a public place, the Metropolitan Police said.
Forensic investigators collect evidence at the scene on Christmas Day. Pic: PA
Items of clothing and blood are seen on the pavement. Pic: PA
Four people were taken to hospital after the incident, with one in a life-threatening condition.
Metropolitan Police officers were called to reports of a crash and a car driving on the wrong side of the road at 12.45am.
The incident occurred outside the Sondheim Theatre, which is the London home of the musical Les Miserables.
Shaftesbury Avenue is at the heart of London‘s West End and the city’s theatre district.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said the suspect was arrested within minutes of the incident “in the early hours of Christmas Day”.
“Since then, investigators have worked tirelessly to build the case and have today charged Anthony Gilheaney with four counts of attempted murder.
“Our thoughts now are with the victims, one of which remains in critical condition in hospital.”
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