Mohamed Al Fayed accused of raping five women in BBC documentary | Mohamed Al Fayed

According to a BBC investigation, former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed is accused of raping five women and sexually abusing at least 15 others while they worked at the luxury department store.

More than 20 women, all former employees of Fayed, said in a BBC documentary that they had been sexually abused by him and that Harrods had covered up the abuse.

The current store owners said they were “deeply shocked” by the allegations and apologized to the victims.

Fayed, who sold Harrods in 2010, died last year aged 94. His obituary in the Guardian said there had been repeated allegations of sexual harassment of female staff during his lifetime.

In 2009, prosecutors decided not to charge Fayed over allegations that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl in the shop. In 2013, he was questioned by police after a woman alleged that he sexually assaulted her at his Park Lane flat after a job interview. Police reopened the case in 2015 but took no further action. Fayed has always denied the allegations.

In the new documentary “Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods,” the alleged victims describe the abuse in detail, sometimes on camera. They claim that the abuse took place in London, Paris, Saint-Tropez and Abu Dhabi.

One woman told the BBC she was raped as a teenager in Fayed's Park Lane flat. “Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sex offender with no moral compass,” she told the BBC.

Three other women told the BBC that he also raped them in the apartment. A fifth woman, identified only as Gemma, said on camera that Fayed raped her in his apartment at Villa Windsor in Paris and then forced her to wash herself with disinfectant.

She told the show: “Obviously he wanted me to destroy every trace of him around me.”

The documentary makers say the women came forward after seeing Fayed's sympathetic portrayal in the Netflix series “The Crown.” The episodes in question covered Princess Diana's relationship with Fayed's son Dodi and the deaths of both of them in a car crash in 1997.

A woman named by the BBC only as Sophia says Fayed tried to rape her more than once when she was his personal assistant from 1988 to 1991. Of Fayed's portrayal in “The Crown,” she told the BBC: “People shouldn't remember him like that.”

Bruce Drummond, a lawyer representing several of the women, told the BBC: “The web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark.”

In a statement, Harrods said: “We are deeply appalled by the allegations of abuse of power made by Mohamed Al Fayed. These were the actions of an individual who sought to abuse his power wherever he operated and we condemn them in the strongest possible terms. We also recognise that as a company we failed our employees, who were his victims, during this time and for that we sincerely apologise.”

“Harrods is a very different organisation today to the one that was owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010. Harrods is an organisation that seeks to put the wellbeing of our people at the heart of everything we do.

“That is why, since new information came to light in 2023 about historical allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, our priority has been to resolve the claims as quickly as possible and avoid lengthy legal proceedings for the women affected. This process remains available to all current or former Harrods employees.

“While we cannot undo the past, we are committed to doing the right thing as an organization, guided by the values ​​we hold today, while ensuring that such behavior cannot be repeated in the future.”