Ex-Harrods staff detail decades of abuse

Women who worked at Harrods were like “lambs to the slaughter” for years Mohamed Al Fayed was able to use the London store to abuse them at will, one accuser has said.

Lindsay was one of five women who shared their stories with BBC Breakfast, and discussed the night she said she was set on fire and attempted rape during a trip to Paris.

Jen also spoke on the program, opening up publicly for the first time about her 35-year ordeal.

The stories describe Fayed’s behavior and allegations about how active he has been at Harrods for decades. Many accounts have emerged as part of a BBC documentary investigation, Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods.

The five accusers are asking other women with similar stories to come forward.

Sexual assault, harassment, daily groping, trafficking, attempted rape, false imprisonment: that’s what Lindsay said was her reality when she worked for Fayed as a personal assistant for five months in 1989-90.

She has told some of her story before, but this morning revealed shocking new details about the night she believes she was set on fire and attacked in Paris.

Lindsay recounted having dinner with Fayed, another colleague and three celebrities, when she received “a tap on the shoulder by security” and was ushered away.

Lindsay thought she and her friends were going to stay at the Ritz, an exclusive Paris hotel that Fayed also owned.

Instead, he was taken to the flat belonging to Dodi’s son.

“When you go in, all the doors are locked behind you. I said to the security guard ‘What’s all this about’.

“They said, ‘it’s just to keep you safe’ – but to make sure you don’t escape.

“It was the scariest night of my life.”

Lindsay said she has no memory of returning from Paris and sustained significant injuries. He said he was then detained in the Harrods office by a colleague on Fayed’s orders.

He managed to escape.

“Harrods will never leave me,” he added.

“Thoughts, the memories I have of that tragic episode are inside me.”

Fayed bought Harrods in 1985 and sold it in 2010.

The BBC has unearthed evidence which shows there was a culture of fear in the store during his tenurea time when he can act with impunity without being challenged by predatory behavior.

The owner has now apologized profusely and said his actions were “a deliberate abuse of power”.

Harrods has also confirmed that it is investigating whether there are staff still in the store involved in any of the allegations against Fayed, after the BBC revealed that a woman claimed that the manager was still employed there and failed to investigate when she said she had been sexually assaulted.

Lindsay told the BBC that Harrods as a wider organization should be held accountable for the system that allowed Fayed to target women.

He added: “Who needs 25 PAs? They enabled this situation and left us like sheep to slaughter.”

Jen, who has told her story publicly for the first time after waiving her anonymity, said she was subjected to several sexual assaults and attempted rape during the five years she worked for Fayed.

“I have lived with this secret, I have been very ashamed for 35 years,” she said.

“I didn’t tell a soul.”

He spoke of how Fayed “still felt like a threat until his death” and how his death in August 2023 “helped me move forward without fear of any consequences”.

Jen recently told her family about her experience, a conversation she described as “something I wish I’d never have”.

The accusers who spoke today agreed that Fayed’s modus operandi was to make his victims feel isolated.

“They make you feel like you’re the only person this is happening to,” Jen said.

He told how he asked to be called “papa” in private.

Fayed would tell her that she had to “see him as a father figure, that he would protect and look after me”.

He provided a flat in Park Lane, central London, for her to stay in under the pretense that she didn’t have to go home alone at night.

Jen then discovers that it is equipped with a secret camera.

Katherine was hired in 2005 through an outside agency and was initially told only that she would be working for a “high net worth” individual.

Not long after meeting Fayed, his new job turned into misery.

“The first week or so was humiliating. I was wearing a Harrods black suit and he would call me into the office and say ‘this can’t work’.

“He would rip the button off the front of his shirt and put money in his shirt pocket and tell me to buy another suit. I would come back the next day and he would repeat it and repeat it.”

That first week left Katherine “broken”, and she realized she was hurting during a trip to Paris.

“I knew I was in danger because my door wasn’t locked, I had to barricade myself with a suitcase and a chair.

“He finally forced me into his office. I stood up to him and told him ‘I’m just a PA and a PA, and that’s what I do’.

“They said ‘you should work at the Post Office’. The next day my desk was gone and I lost my job.”

Gemma worked as a personal assistant to Fayed between 2007 and 2009.

He described how he would become “scarier” during trips abroad, a pattern that prosecutors attested to.

Gemma said she was raped during one of her trips to Paris.

He said: “It’s something that will never go away… in the end it’s like Harrods never goes away.”

Like other women the BBC spoke to, Gemma fears there are more Fayed victims out there.

She said: “It’s amazing how many women have been involved over the years.

“It could be thousands, you never know.

“In my day there must have been hundreds of women who were brought into the office and disappeared into the meeting room and cried.”

Gemma also spoke about how her story “helped” her overcome the trauma and praised the “amazing support” she received from her friends.

“We grow stronger together, every day.”

A common theme among the stories of women who worked at Harrods was their ignorance of the dangers they faced and the scale of Fayed’s abuse.

Nicole – who is also sharing her story publicly for the first time – said: “I really feel that people are not being honest​​​​​​​​​​and open up, but it’s hard to talk about it.

“I don’t know what is true and what is not true, there are many rumours, people say.

“But for me, his reputation was ‘he’s a bit of a letch, he’s a bit of a handyman’ – no more serious allegations, because there’s absolutely no way I’d work for him if that were the case.

Nicole, who worked for Fayed between 2005 and 2007, also spoke of the fear he instilled among those working under him: “There’s a palpable anxiety, you can feel this hum in the air…

“Every day you have this anxiety … (and think) ‘how am I going to get through today’.

“It’s a battle to come through the day smiling.”

In a statement released after the BBC aired the documentary, Harrods said the premises were very different under current ownership.

The store has reached financial settlements with several accusers and says it will agree to them soon.

Many women choose to seek justice through alternative legal processes. One of the attorneys leading the effort is Dean Armstrong, who says his team has heard from as many as 200 women.

He told BBC Breakfast that his legal team was working on a “worldwide claim” focused on Harrods that had occurred in several countries.

Mr Armstrong said there were “whole systems in place to facilitate” Fayed’s abuse at the shop, which gave him the power to intimidate women who threatened to speak out.

“I called him a monster last week,” the lawyer added. “I stand by that comment.”

All the women who shared their stories with the BBC have one thing in common: they are asking others out there who may have been assaulted at Harrods to come forward.

Jen reassures victims who have not shared their experiences that they will be heard and supported, and urges them to talk to others.

“We can’t bear him because he’s dead – but we can make sure people know the truth about this man,” he added.

“They are not gregarious, charitable clowns – they are dangerous sexual predators.”