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A large number of women were sexually abused, and a huge scandal shocked the UK…
Source: BackChina (backchina.com)
For two consecutive days, a huge scandal that shocked the UK occupied the front pages of major British media, and even important political and economic news such as “Bank of England’s interest rate decision” and “British Prime Minister’s gift-receiving incident” were squeezed out.
According to multiple British media reports, dozens of victims have come forward and accused Al Fayed, an Egyptian tycoon who died in London last year, of sexually abusing a large number of women. It is understood that Al Fayed, a super-rich man who once owned London’s high-end department store Harrods and the Premier League team Fulham, was also the father of Dodi Fayed, the boyfriend of British Princess Diana. After his son and Diana were both killed in a car accident, he publicly accused the British royal family of being the mastermind behind the accident.
The Al Fayed sexual abuse scandal was exposed in a recent BBC documentary called “Al Fayed: Harrods Predator”. The film collected evidence that Harrods officials not only did not intervene in Fayed’s behavior during his ownership of Harrods, but also helped cover up the abuse allegations. The film said that based on in-depth investigations, more than 20 former female employees of Harrods accused Al Fayed, who died last year at the age of 94, of sexually assaulting them. Fayed was 79 at the time.
Harrods is a British luxury department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. The company is owned by Harrods Limited, which is currently owned by the State of Qatar through its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (in 2010, Fayed announced the sale of Harrods to the Qatar Investment Authority, which reportedly acquired the Knightsbridge store for £1.5 billion). Harrods welcomes 15 million visitors a year. The department store covers an area of 5 acres, has 330 departments and a retail area of 1.1 million square feet. It is one of the largest and most famous department stores in the world. According to the latest financial report, in the 52 weeks ending February 2024, Harrods’ revenue increased by 8% year-on-year to £1.0751 billion, while operating profit fell by 17.2% year-on-year to £167.7 million.
Today, the British Mirror also reported that at least 100 women had been sexually assaulted by Fayed. Lawyers on the legal team representing some of the victims said, “The corruption and abuse of this company is like a spider web, unbelievable and very dark.”
According to British media reports, Al Fayed, who died last year, was also the father of Dodi Fayed, the boyfriend of the late British Princess Diana. On the morning of August 31, 1997, Diana and Dodi Fayed were both killed after being involved in a car accident in a Paris tunnel. In the following ten years, Al Fayed has repeatedly accused the British royal family of assassinating his son and Diana. In 2008, after the jury decided that Diana was illegally killed by a following vehicle, Al Fayed expressed his acceptance of the sentence and said: “Give up the 10-year campaign to prove that Diana and Dodi were murdered by conspiracy.”
The locations of the sexual assaults reported by the BBC include a luxury apartment building owned by Fayed in London, the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and the Windsor Villa he rented. Many women interviewed by the BBC investigation described being invited to an apartment building owned by Fayed after get off work at Harrods. They said that when they got there, they would be called to Fayed’s apartment, “where he would greet them in a silk robe and then rape them.”
Thirteen of the women said they were sexually assaulted at Fayyad’s apartment building, and four said they were raped there.
A woman who goes by the pseudonym Sophia said that when she was working in the women’s clothing department of Harrods, Fayed took the initiative to contact her and invited her to work in his office. A few days after she started her new job, Fayed began to “bear hug” her and then tried to kiss her. Sophia said: “Another time, Fayed invited me to his apartment in London, he pushed me on the sofa and forced me to ride on her. It was a terrible nightmare.”
Another woman said Fayed’s sexual abuse was well known during the time he owned Harrods between 1986 and 2010. She said: “We watched people walk through that door and thought, ‘Poor girl, it’s your turn today’ and there was nothing we could do to stop it.”
Another woman, who said she was raped in one of Fayyad’s apartments, said: “I made it clear that I did not want this to happen.”
According to the BBC, in 2008, Ellie, then 15, told the police that Fayed molested her and tried to kiss her in Harrods department store, after which London police deleted the evidence from her mobile phone and dropped the case. Ellie recalled that she had resisted at the time: “He flew into a rage and started yelling at me. I was a child when this happened. I was 15 and he was almost 80 years old.”
In response to the allegations, Harrods issued a statement and apologised to the victims: “We are deeply shocked by the allegations of abuse by Mohamed Al Fayed. These were deliberate acts of abuse by an individual in a position of power and we condemn them in the strongest possible terms wherever he operated. We also acknowledge that we as a business have failed our staff, who were his victims, during this time and for this we deeply apologise.”
Harrods added: “The Harrods of today is a very different company to the Harrods that was owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010.” “Our priority is to resolve the claims in the quickest possible way and to avoid lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved. This process is available to all current and former Harrods employees,” the company said.
According to the latest news from British media, Gloria Allred, the representative of the international legal team of this sensational sexual assault case in the UK, said at a press conference today that Fayed is a typical representative of serial sexual offenders. “Under the glitz and glamour of Harrods, there is a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment. The core of Harrods is rotten. Although the company said it was unaware of the history of sexual abuse, the company’s employees in the documentary generally knew about the abuse.”
“We are here to publicly say to the world that Harrods should be held accountable, they should correct the problem, they should take action as soon as possible, they need to face reality and take full responsibility for the abuse of these women,” said lawyer Armstrong.
