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65 More Women Tell of Al Fayeds Sexual Abuse-Police Investigate 40
WORSE Than Weinstein- 65 More Women Tell BBC of Sexual Abuse by Al Fayed
Met Police investigate 40 new allegations to Harrods owner Mohamed al Fayed
BBC 11 OCT 2024
Sheenagh, pictured in 1975 before she moved to Dubai, worked in a bank where Al Fayed was a customer
One of the 65 women, Sheenagh waived her anonymity to recount Mohamed Al Fayeds abuse
A further 65 women have contacted the BBC saying they were abused by Mohamed Al Fayed, with allegations stretching far beyond Harrods and as far back as 1977.
Their accounts include new details of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape, sent to the BBC in the weeks since the documentary Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods and a podcast were broadcast.
They suggest Al Fayed, who died last year, used a broader range of abuse tactics and also targeted women employed outside his businesses.
Several of the women interviewed by the BBC allege they were recruited by Al Fayed under false pretences into roles on the billionaire?s domestic staff and were then sexually exploited by him - including at his mansion in Oxted.
In the earliest accusation of abuse which the BBC has heard, a woman says she was assaulted by Al Fayed in Dubai in 1977, eight years before his purchase of Harrods helped him become a household name in the UK.
She describes Al Fayed personally stalking and threatening her. Women who worked at Harrods say he later carried out similar intimidation tactics through a team of security staff.
Of the 65 women who contacted the BBC to share their accounts of abuse, 37 of these say they had worked at Harrods.
In response to the BBC's inquiries, Harrods told us: ?Since the airing of the documentary, so far there are 200+ individuals who are now in the Harrods process to settle claims directly with the business."
One woman said she was working at a London flower shop in the early 1980s, when she was spotted by one of Al Fayed's team. Then aged 21, she says she was flown to the Paris Ritz for a purported job interview, where Al Fayed sexually assaulted her.
A former BBC make-up artist also said she was sexually assaulted by Al Fayed when she was working on an episode of the Clothes Show in 1989, in which the billionaire was interviewed at Villa Windsor, his home in Paris.
Oxted Mansion: ?I Was Kept a Prisoner?
Margot, whose name we have changed, was 19 when she responded to a job advertisement in The Lady magazine in 1985, for a position as a nanny and governess in Surrey. She submitted her application and a photo as requested.
Having worked as a nanny before, she remembers finding it odd that she was asked at the end of her interview "if I had a boyfriend or if I?ve ever had a boyfriend".
"I said no?[The interviewer] looked relieved about it,? she told the BBC.
It was not until she was offered the job that she was told the role was with Al Fayed and his family, at their Barrow Green Court mansion in Oxted. Her mother encouraged her to try a one-month trial.
?I remember being driven in a chauffeured limousine through the incredibly impressive entrance gates to Barrow Green Court and the long driveway up to a massive brick house,? she says.
Inside, Margot says she was shown to a small, dimly lit room - which had a single bed, a desk and an internal telephone.
She soon learned to fear the sound of it ringing and Al Fayed summoning her. Expecting to see the children, she would arrive to find him alone. This is when she says the repeated sexual assaults started.
?The job just didn?t exist. He didn?t need a nanny. He didn?t want a nanny,? she told the BBC.
For five days, Margot says she only saw the children twice and was not allowed to interact with them. Instead each time she was requested by Al Fayed, she says she was sexually assaulted by him - in different locations on the estate, including the indoor pool, gardens and study.
She felt trapped. ?Once you get in the house, you can?t get out. You have to go down a long driveway and through big gates at the bottom. He?s got to give permission for the gates to open,? Margot told the BBC.
In the early hours one morning, she says Al Fayed came into her room, got into her bed, pressed her against the wall, and raped her vaginally and anally.
Margot says she was not allowed to leave Al Fayeds Surrey mansion
After he left her room, she immediately packed her case and told Al Fayed later that day that she wanted to leave and did not understand why she was there.
But he refused and told her the job description would ?become much clearer with time?.
Al Fayed made some of his early fortune in construction projects in Dubai, including its harbour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O44BR-kYC8k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn0gkinDrCM
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