Police in London said on Friday that 40 more women have come forward with allegations of rape or sexual assault against the late Harrods store owner Mohamed Al Fayed, since the BBC aired allegations from several former employees at the London store last month.
The Metropolitan Police said it had received allegations “relating to 40 victim-survivors covering crimes including sexual assault and rape” that occurred between 1979 and 2013.
They are in addition to 21 women who approached the police between 2005 and 2023 on allegations of committing sexual crimes against the businessman. He was never prosecuted and died last year at the age of 94.
Police urged Al-Fayed’s victims and anyone with information about the crimes to report them. Chief Stephen Klayman said investigators will review the information “to see if there are any criminal allegations that can be pursued.”
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Police and Harrods executives are facing questions about why no action was taken against Al-Fayed when he was alive. He was questioned by investigators in 2008 over the alleged sexual assault of a 15-year-old, and in 2009 and 2015 police referred evidence files about him to the Crown Prosecution Service. He was never charged.
Harrods’ current managing director, Michael Ward, said last month that the store was “deeply sorry” for the failure of staff. He said it was clear that Al-Fayed “presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussions and sexual misconduct.”
The Al-Fayed family did not comment.
The Egyptian-born businessman moved to Britain in the 1960s and bought Harrods, an upscale retail store in London’s tony Knightsbridge area, in the mid-1980s. Al-Fayed sold Harrods in 2010 to a company owned by the state of Qatar through its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority.
He became a well-known figure through his ownership of the store and the Fulham Football Team in London. He was often in the headlines after his son Dodi was killed alongside Princess Diana in a car accident in Paris in 1997.
Al-Fayed spent years promoting the conspiracy theory that the royal family arranged the accident because they did not approve of Diana dating an Egyptian.
An investigation concluded that Diana and Dodi died due to the reckless actions of their driver – an employee of the Ritz Hotel in Paris owned by Al-Fayed – and paparazzi chasing the couple. Separate investigations in the United Kingdom and France also concluded that there was no conspiracy.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
