A woman has told the BBC that she was invited to the London home of former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed for a business meeting and was afterwards subjected to a “sickening” sexual assault. Days before he died in August 2023, the woman, who told the BBC is called Melanie, believes the police were on the verge of arresting him over her allegations.
The millionaire, according to a BBC investigation that aired Thursday, is accused of sexually assaulting more than 20 women. Five claimed they were raped. Melanie is one of a host of former employees of Harrods who have contacted the BBC in light of the documentary and podcast broadcast, Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, to say they were assaulted.
The BBC investigation highlighted evidence of how Harrods covered up abuse complaints while Fayed owned it and how the luxury store failed to act on those complaints. Melanie makes the statement in light of new revelations into failed attempts by prosecutors and police to hold Fayed accountable during his lifetime. Lawyers representing other women the BBC have spoken to will detail their next steps this Friday.
“Dickhead. slaggy
Melanie spent several years before 2010 working at Harrods. The job at the iconic department store was her “dream job” when she started working at 21. She previously had only seen Fayed, then in his late seventies, once before during business meetings before she was invited to his Park Lane residence in London in late 2007. Melanie said though the invitation “rang alarm bells,” she nevertheless went to the evening gathering. The housekeeper ushered her into a sitting room.
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Melanie explained: “He sat down next to me and chatted to me for a bit. He asked me to come back in a couple of weeks so I could stay in the flats overnight before the Harrods sale was on, to accompany him to the sale and to meet the celebrity who was opening it.”I said yes just so I could go because he wasn’t really going to let me leave unless I agreed to it.
I didn’t turn around. That’s when he put his hands on my breast and muttered some really horrible things as I got up to leave. And I was just so shocked. I just kind of turned around and left.”
She reportedly told the BBC that she “felt it was my fault” for years, as she was “naive enough to have gone”, and she didn’t tell loved ones all the details of the “sickening” incident. She called Fayed “slimy” and a “sleazebag”.
Melanie decided to contact police in January 2023. Emails seen by the BBC show the matter was passed to the Met’s Crime Scene Investigation department, which investigates serious complaints.
Melanie says she was subsequently told Fayed was due to be arrested by the Met this year, and that two attempts had been made. But he was too ill to be questioned, and he died in August 2023 aged 94.
“Swirling rumours” on the shop floor
Melanie, who has spoken to the BBC, said there were “rumours swirling” about Fayed and likened his personal office to a “modelling agency” which recruited young women. “There was definitely a knowledge, almost like a secret knowledge, within the company that Fayed enjoys having beautiful girls in his chairman’s office,” the woman continued. You kind of wonder what that says, too.
Indeed, by accounts from several women employees at Harrods, Fayed appeared as a predator who preyed upon employees through abusing his position and using every trick in the book to keep them silent.
Some ex-staff members told how he used to walk around his department store, noting pretty young female clerks and further promoting them to work in his private office. Former employees the BBC spoke to said that this abuse was kept secret by the store. “One of us remembered articulately how it felt: “We all watched each other walk through that door thinking, ‘you poor girl, it’s you today’ and feeling utterly powerless to stop it.” Aside from the incidents in Harrods and his Mayfair home, women have recounted incidents involving Fayed on excursions to Paris, St. Tropez and Abu Dhabi.
One woman described him as a “monster” who “nurtured fear” in his subordinates, while the onetime Harrods deputy director of security revealed that Fayed had cameras installed surreptitiously and had his employees’ phones tapped to capture their conversations.
Al-Fayed: Harrods Predator
A BBC investigation into claims that former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed was a rapist, and an attempted rapist. Did the luxurious retailer protect a predatory billionaire?
There were others who tried to take Fayed to task besides Melanie.
“Aware of various allegations of sexual offences made over a number of years” against Fayed, the Metropolitan Police acknowledged.
Every allegation put to the police was investigated and, where appropriate, advice from the Crown Prosecution Service was sought,” according to the statement.
However, Fayed was never charged with any offense.
The nearest he came to being found out was in October 2008, when he was questioned about allegations from a girl who said she had met him when she was fourteen. Ellie—who spoke to the BBC under a pseudonym to protect her identity—said Fayed had promised her in person that he would find her work when she was still only a teenager. At the age of just fifteen, Ellie started at Harrods.
She described how, in May 2008, she was called into the boardroom at Harrods, where she said Fayed assaulted her.
He started hugging me, kissing me-it put me at ease a little-and then he just took my face and tried to push his tongue into my mouth. “I told him that I was 15, and [said] ‘What are you doing?’ and he told me I was becoming a beautiful woman, then he took my chest.”
She said after she pushed Fayed away, he got furious and started screaming at her. When Ellie went to the police, in 2008, Fayed was questioned by police officers. In October 2008, this was announced.
The Met said on Thursday that it had taken statements from numerous witnesses and analyzed telephone records in Ellie’s case. The force said it had submitted a file to the CPS containing evidence but prosecutors decided that no action was required. Although the BBC has not seen any proof that Fayed was ever questioned on any other claim, the Met has failed to comment on whether Ellie’s case was the only one in which he was formally questioned.
The BBC is aware that Ellie’s case was the only one in which a file containing evidence was sent to the CPS—a requirement that must be met before a person may face charges.
Four times, police investigations into Fayed reached the stage where detectives took legal advice from prosecutors. In 2018, 2021 and 2023 the CPS provided advice to the Met; however in those investigations police did not provide prosecutors with the entire case file. It is also not known whether each of those investigations relates to a different woman.
It suggests that throughout his life, the claims against him were never tested in a court of law.
Melanie went on to describe how it had felt to know Fayed had died, and she would never be allowed to be questioned about her 2023 report as “gutting”.
Melanie told the BBC, when asked what she would say to Fayed if he was alive, “That you didn’t get away with it.” that you can’t buy your way out of this because everyone knows what you’ve done.”
Blending into the background
The accusations against Fayed aren’t new. The Egyptian-born billionaire owned Harrods from 1985 until 2010 and also drew notoriety for other high-profile property acquisitions, such as Fulham Football Club and the Ritz hotel in Paris.
He further gained notoriety when his son Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales, who was in a love affair with Dodi, died in an automobile accident in Paris.
Yet a series of exclusives were run, first Vanity Fair in 1995, then ITV in 1997 and Channel 4 in 2017, detailing claims of Fayed’s predatory behavior through his lifetime despite talk show appearances and associations with high-ranking leaders and celebrities. It would only be after Fayed had died that most of his victims started to come forward.
More allegations expected to name names on Friday. The UK legal team for many of the women featured in the BBC documentary “Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods” holds a news conference this morning.
Independent defense counsel will outline the case facts of Harrods. Joining them will be US attorney for women’s rights Gloria Allred, who has represented victims of some of history’s most notorious criminals. Of the women who spoke to the BBC, fourteen have filed lawsuits against Harrods’ current owners, seeking damages. “It has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved,” said Harrods. The store said it provides a process for women who claim to have been attacked by Fayed.
After the broadcast of BBC report, Harrods again apologized to its ex-staff members. A spokeswoman said: “We have now had the opportunity to watch the programme and once again express our sympathy to the victims featured.”
The authorities Metropolitan Department declared its commitment to investigate sexual offenses and called upon victims to come forward to the police. It added that any new information relating to Fayed will be “evaluated and investigated accordingly”. The family of Fayed did not comment when approached.
