Jo Adnitt and Kirstie Brewer
BBC News Investigations
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Ali Fayed bought Harrods with his brothers Salah and Mohamed in 1985
Three former Harrods employees have accused Mohamed Al Fayed’s only surviving brother of sexually assaulting them while they were working for the department store.
Speaking publicly for the first time, the women say Ali Fayed, 82, assaulted them in the 1990s when he and his brothers, Mohamed and Salah, owned and ran Harrods.
A spokesperson for Mr Fayed, who lives in the US, said the businessman “will not be scapegoated” and he “unequivocally denies any and all the allegations of wrongdoing” and that “the incidents simply never took place”.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual violence
The alleged sexual assaults happened in London, Scotland, Switzerland and the United States. One of the women, a former interior designer for Harrods, says one assault happened on a work trip while she was staying with Ali Fayed and his family at their former home in Connecticut.
“His hands were everywhere,” she says, and he stopped because “one of his little boys started calling for him”.
All three women say prior to Ali Fayed’s alleged assaults, they had also been sexually abused by his older brother. Police say 111 women have now made allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed, who added the Arabic “Al” prefix to his surname sometime in the 1970s.
One of the women, Amy, has told the BBC she wants “an explanation” from Ali Fayed, and an “understanding of what was going on that can help [her] step forward and begin healing”.
All three say they didn’t feel able to speak out at the time.
“This is my chance to finally stand up for myself. I’m not going to be that scared 24-year-old who doesn’t know what to do,” says Frances – who, like Amy, has waived her right to anonymity.
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Ali Fayed with his older brothers Salah Fayed and Mohamed Al Fayed
Frances took a job working for Harrods in the store’s interior design studio in 1989.
It wasn’t long before Mohamed Al Fayed began to bully and sexually abuse her, she says. Frances says she recalls him regularly trying to grab her breasts and grope her while at work, or subjecting her to “foul” verbal tirades.
Despite not having much experience, Frances says she was tasked with renovating Mohamed Al Fayed’s sprawling Scottish Balnagown Estate, including a farmhouse belonging to his younger brother, Ali.
Frances describes Ali Fayed’s demeanour as calmer than that of Mohamed.
“I think for a moment I thought maybe he would be kinder to me,” she says. “But he wasn’t.”
Ali Fayed, like Mohamed, also had a private office and private apartment in 60 Park Lane in central London.
It was in Ali’s office where Frances says his sexual abuse started with him “trying to kiss” her, followed by him “groping” and “molesting” her.
She says both the Fayed brothers would regularly give her gifts. “With Mohamed, it would often be wads of cash, Ali would give jewellery or clothes. It would be a see-saw between abusive behaviour then praise for my work and these lavish items.”
The abuse escalated in 1992, she says, when she flew to Connecticut to discuss interior design plans with Ali Fayed’s wife.
Frances describes what she says happened to her in Ali Fayed’s US home
“It was this huge private house and it was decorated in an English country house style. I don’t think I’d ever seen anything like it in my life,” says Frances.
“I remember his wife taking me into this picture-perfect American rich town.”
Frances says she was staying in a guest room at the family’s house when Ali Fayed told her to get changed for dinner one evening.
“I was in the bathroom and got undressed. When I came out in my underwear, he [Ali] was just standing there in the room. I hadn’t heard him come in or knock.”
Frances says Ali Fayed got her on the bed and tried to get on top of her. His hands were “inside my bra, inside my pants. I knew what his intention was”.
According to Frances the alleged attack stopped when one of Ali’s children called out for him. Afterwards, she says she sat on the bed, “frozen”.
A spokesperson for Ali Fayed said the businessman “is not a perpetrator” and will “robustly defend himself against these unsubstantiated claims”.
When Frances returned to work in London, she says Mohamed Al Fayed “exploded” and started “aggressively spitting abusive words” because he apparently believed she and Ali had had sex .
She says he told her: “I’m done with you… go be with my brother.”
“From that point, I’d still see Mohamed, and he’d still call me every name under the sun, but he didn’t actually physically abuse me,” says Frances.
“Now I was in fear of two of the owners and I knew if I spoke out it would get worse. I could be threatened, I could be fired. I just felt I had to keep on going and, at some point, this horror would pass.”
‘I remember him laughing’
Frances says Ali Fayed sexually assaulted her again later that year on a trip to Balnagown, where she was adding the finishing interior touches to his farmhouse.
Ali called her into his private office, she says, then dragged her onto his lap and started kissing her neck and touching her breasts as he spun around in his chair.
She says she could feel he was aroused through his trousers.
“I remember him laughing,” recalls Frances, who says she eventually managed to break free and run out of the room. “Laughter is meant to be nice. It wasn’t. I left him there just laughing at me.”
Ali Fayed would often try to sexually touch her when they met, she says, “always laughing and joking and making out it was fun”.
The following year, Frances says she was fired for being in a relationship with another employee, something she says Mohamed Al Fayed forbade among staff. Harrods later settled a case she brought for unfair dismissal.
Frances describes her time after leaving Harrods as “going underground and shutting myself down”. She struggled to work and trust people and eventually moved away. She says Mohamed and Ali Fayed “took away” her confidence and dignity.
“To this day I suffer with terrible anxiety and panic attacks and I don’t like people in my space,” she says.
Frances
Frances spent four years working at Harrods as an interior designer
Mohamed Al Fayed and his younger brothers bought Harrods in 1985. While Mohamed was the chairman, running day-to-day operations of the luxury department store, Ali Fayed was a director and also helped oversee the House of Fraser group, which they owned in the early 1990s.
The new claims point to the “breadth of abuse” by Mohamed Al Fayed and “raise serious allegations” against his brother Ali, Harrods told the BBC in a statement.
“We could not possibly speak on behalf of any individual who can, and should, respond to these allegations directly,” it added.
The store, which came under new ownership in 2010, said it hoped survivors were looking at “every appropriate avenue to them in their pursuit of justice, whether that be Harrods, the police or the Fayed family and estate”.
Ali Fayed, who was granted British citizenship in 1999, co-owns luxury British shirtmaker Turnbull and Asser with his sons – but resigned as director on 8 December 2024, 10 days after these allegations were put to him by the BBC.
All three women alleging abuse by Ali Fayed initially spoke to filmmaker Keaton Stone, who has been investigating Mohamed Al Fayed since 2018 and whose work informed the BBC’s recent documentary and podcast about Mohamed’s predatory behaviour.
Mohamed Al Fayed never faced charges while he was alive, but the women believe his brother Ali should now be investigated by police.
“Whether any charges would be brought, I don’t know, but I believe he should be investigated for what he did,” says Amy.
Amy says, to this day, she tries to “stay invisible” in certain social situations
She worked as a personal assistant to Mohamed Al Fayed for almost three years, and says he sexually abused her throughout her time at Harrods. The abuse escalated, Amy says, when Mohamed let himself into her room on a work trip to Paris and tried to rape her.
She says she “endured” the abuse, thinking “that was just what being a young woman meant, it was a hazard of the workplace”.
Amy says she remembers Ali Fayed coming into Mohamed’s Park Lane office – and also taking phone calls from him. “He gave me the nickname ‘Amy speaking’ which he thought was hilarious,” she recalls. “He would giggle when he spoke to me.”
A year or two into the job, Amy says Mohamed told her to go to Switzerland with Ali to help with some personal assistant duties like filing and paperwork.
The pair travelled together on a Harrods private jet, she says, and were driven to the upmarket resort of Gstaad, where the Fayed family owned a ski chalet.
“Once we got to the chalet, aside from the elderly housekeeper, it was myself and Ali alone for three days. It was strange,” says Amy. “No efforts were made to even create something for me to do.”
The trip was taken out of season and Amy says Ali Fayed seemed bored. He suggested they go to the local public swimming pool, she says, and when they got there it was deserted.
“That’s when Ali’s demeanour changed and he became giddy,” says Amy.
“He pulled me in under the water, and groped and fondled me, making me feel very, very uncomfortable – very much trapped. I was terrified thinking how am I going to get out of this.”
Amy says Ali Fayed laughed as he “groped” her, before she managed to break free of his clutches.
After the alleged assault, Amy says they both returned to the chalet and she was left alone for the rest of the evening, feeling isolated and afraid.
The inside of a birthday card Amy says Ali Fayed sent her in 1994
Like the other two women, Amy didn’t tell anyone about the alleged abuse by either of the brothers.
Amy says she didn’t want to upset her loved ones and didn’t necessarily feel people would believe her.
“By not saying anything, I think it’s a coping technique, to just put it away,” she adds.
Amy went back to work after the alleged assault took place in Gstaad, but eventually resigned.
She says she “escaped and ran away” to work abroad.
“I wanted to just remove myself from it all”, she says, but “the trauma” lived with her.
“To this day, in certain social situations, I don’t want to be noticed, I try to stay invisible,” she says.
Ali Fayed denies all the allegations of wrongdoing – said his spokesperson – and “will not allow false accusations to go unchallenged”.
A third woman, who we are calling Laura, told us she recalls Mohamed Al Fayed summoning her to his office and telling her “with a smirk on his face” that his brother Ali wanted to see her.
“I remember it vividly because I had no comprehension of who Ali was, I’d never even seen him,” she says. “I don’t know how I was spotted or ‘selected’ for him.”
Laura had been working directly for Mohamed Al Fayed in Harrods’ HR department and says his sexual harassment towards her had become commonplace, escalating to two serious sexual assaults.
Laura says Mohamed sent her to their office building in Park Lane one evening, but when she arrived there was no work to be done. She says she was sent through to Ali Fayed’s apartment where he was waiting. Laura says he told her they would be having dinner, and then presented her with a bottle of wine from the year she was born and a necklace.
“I wondered how he knew things about me,” she says.
Alone in his apartment, Laura says Ali Fayed ordered her through to the bedroom where she says she was subjected to a serious sexual assault. She says she felt “numbed with fear” and had to do whatever she was told in order to “get out of there”.
“Afterwards he just told me I could go.”
Laura says she never saw Ali Fayed again but kept the necklace from that night and it has recently been valued at £6,500.
The abuse at Harrods “took its toll” says Laura – even after she left the store. She bottled it all up for 25 years, she says, and still hasn’t told some of her loved ones what she went through.
All three women are pursuing civil legal action against Harrods through Justice for Harrods Survivors.
“We applaud the bravery of the women who have spoken out on their allegations against Ali Fayed and reiterate our commitment to securing justice and accountability for all survivors,” says their barrister Maria Mulla.
“We repeat, no stone will be left unturned in pursuit of this aim.”
The BBC spoke to three other women who said they had been either raped, sexually assaulted or trafficked by the other Fayed brother, Salah, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010.
The women who accuse Ali Fayed question what the three brothers knew about each other’s behaviour.
“Looking back now, maybe they found it amusing to see how far the boundaries were with us between the brothers,” says Amy. “Maybe there was competition. I really don’t know, but I do feel it was all amusing for them.”
Ali Fayed’s spokesperson says he “unequivocally denies any and all allegations of wrongdoing. The alleged incidents simply never occurred. Mr Fayed is not a perpetrator and will not be scapegoated. He will robustly defend himself against these unsubstantiated claims and will not allow false accusations to go unchallenged.”
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