More than 400 alleged victims have so far contacted the legal team working on a case against the late Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed, who has been accused of sexual abuse and rape, lawyer Dean Armstrong said on Thursday.

A BBC documentary in September revealed Al Fayed, who died last year aged 94, sexually abused female staff at his London department store Harrods, forced them to have medical screenings and threatened consequences if they tried to complain.

“The sheer scale of abuse perpetrated by Al Fayed, and facilitated by those around him, sadly, continues to grow,” Armstrong told a news conference in London.

Al Fayed always denied similar accusations raised by other reports before his death.

When asked for a response, Harrods pointed Reuters to its past statements on the allegations, in which it has apologised, said it was “appalled” by them and that it had launched a process for any current or former Harrods employees who wish to claim compensation.

Another lawyer, Bruce Drummond, said the more than 400 claims have been made by women from around the world, mostly from Britain but also from the United States, Australia, Malaysia, Spain, South Africa and other countries.

“That, in our opinion, is an industrial scale abuse,” Drummond said, adding abuse took place “within the walls of Harrods” but also in other locations linked to Al Fayed’s business empire, such as Fulham Football Club, the Ritz Paris and his estate in Surrey.

Victims include the daughter of a former U.S. ambassador to Britain and the daughter of a well-known soccer player, Drummond said, without giving any names.

The BBC documentary said Harrods had failed to intervene and helped to cover up abuse allegations during his ownership.

Lawyers have criticised the Harrods-run compensation scheme, saying some of the victims do not feel comfortable to reach out to Harrods directly for compensation as that is where the abuse unfolded.

Drummond said some senior members of staff from the Al Fayed era still worked at Harrods.

The Financial Times last week reported that four alleged victims had quit the Harrods compensation scheme due to their concerns over potential conflicts of interest and poor communication.

Several media organisations had reported allegations of sexual abuse against Al Fayed before the BBC documentary, including Vanity Fair in 1995, ITV in 1997 and Channel 4 in 2017. Lawyers said in September many of the women only felt able to speak publicly in the BBC report after he died last year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Former Harrods boss Mohamed Al-Fayed, whose son Emad El-Din “Dodi” Mohamed Fayed was killed in a 1997 Paris car crash alongside Princess Diana, has been accused of multiple rapes. According to The BBC, five women have claimed that they were raped by the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, when they worked at the luxury London department store Harrods, which Al-Fayed owned from 1985 to 2010. The outlet revealed that it had heard testimonies from more than 20 former female staff members who claim the billionaire businessman sexually assaulted them, with the incidents allegedly taking place in London, St. Tropez, Abu Dhabi and Paris. 

The allegations were laid out in a BBC documentary, titled ‘Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods’. The documentary revealed that during Fayed’s ownership, Harrods not only failed to intervene but helped cover up abuse allegations. 

In a statement, Harrods’ current owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations and that his victims had been failed – for which the store apologised.

“These were the actions of an individual who was intent on abusing his power wherever he operated and we condemn them in the strongest terms,” the statement read. “We also acknowledge that during this time as a business, we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologise,” it added. 

According to The BBC, one woman has alleged that the billionaire raped her at his London apartment. “I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over,” she told the outlet. 

Another woman claimed that she was raped at the apartment in Mayfair when she was a teenager. “We were all scared. He actively cultivated fear,” she said. “If he said ‘jump’ employees would ask ‘how high’.”

A woman named Sophia, who worked as Fayed’s personal assistant from 1988 to 1991, says the billionaire tried to rape her more than once. “I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have a [family] home to go back to, I had to pay rent,” she said. “I knew I had to go through this and I didn’t want to. It was horrible and my head was scrambled,” she added. 

Another of his personal assistants, Gemma, who worked for Fayed from 2007 to 2009, claimed he raped her at Villa Windsor in Paris, a former home of King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson. She said that as part of the agreement for her leaving the job, she had to shred all evidence and sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in return for a sum of money. Ms Gemma told the outlet that a shredding truck came to her lawyer’s office and a member of HR from Harrods was present. 

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Tony Leeming, a former Harrods department manager of 10 years, said that he was aware of the abuse of women on the shop floor, but claimed he did not know about the allegations of assault or rape. Mr Leeming’s testimony is backed by former members of Fayed’s security team. 

“We were aware that he had this very strong interest in young girls,” said Eamon Coyle, who joined Harrods in 1979 as a store detective, then became deputy director of security from 1989-95.

Many women told the BBC that when they began working directly for Fayed they underwent medicals – including invasive sexual health tests carried out by doctors. The outlet also reported that before his death, the billionaire faced a number of sexual assault claims in 1997, 2008 and 2017.

Of the women the outlet spoke to for the investigation, a total of 14 have brought civil claims against Harrods for damages. The department store’s current owners started settling these in July 2023, according to the outlet. 

Notably, Fayed, born in Egypt, moved to the United Kingdom in 1974 and was already a well-known public figure when he took over Harrods in 1985. His son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside Princess Diana in 1997. He has become known to a new generation through the two most recent Netflix series of ‘The Crown’. 

Mohamed Al-Fayed was an outspoken and successful Egyptian business tycoon. His death comes almost 26 years to the day after the car crash in Paris that killed his eldest son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales, on August 31, 1997.

Here are five points on the self-made billionaire:

Mohamed al-Fayed, the self-made Egyptian billionaire who bought the Harrods department store and promoted the discredited conspiracy theory that the British royal family was behind the death of his son and Princess Diana, has died, Fulham Football Club said in a statement.

“On behalf of everyone at Fulham Football Club, I send my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mohamed Al Fayed upon the news of his passing at age 94,” said Shahid Khan, who succeeded al-Fayed as owner of the London soccer club.

Born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, al-Fayed began his career selling fizzy drinks and then worked as a sewing-machine salesman. He built his family’s fortune in real estate, shipping and construction, first in the Middle East and then in Europe.

Although al-Fayed owned establishment symbols such as Harrods, Fulham and the Ritz hotel in Paris, he was always an outsider in Britain, tolerated but not embraced.

He fell out with the British government over its refusal to grant him citizenship of the country that was his home for decades, and often threatened to move to France, which gave him the Legion of Honour, its highest civilian award.

Al-Fayed spent 10 years trying to prove Diana and his son Dodi were murdered when their car crashed in a road tunnel in Paris in 1997 as they tried to outrun paparazzi photographers on motorbikes.

Unsupported by any evidence, according to the inquest into Diana’s death, he claimed that she was bearing Dodi’s child and accused Prince Philip, the queen’s husband, of ordering Britain’s security services to kill her to stop her marrying a Muslim and having his baby.

While al-Fayed was known for self-invention, exaggeration, and boasting, he was also a central figure in key moments in Britain’s recent history.

His rancorous takeover of Harrods in 1985 sparked one of Britain’s most bitter business feuds, while in 1994 he caused a scandal with the disclosure that he had paid politicians to ask questions on his behalf in parliament.

Like many billionaires, al-Fayed spurned convention. He once said he wanted to be mummified in a golden sarcophagus in a glass pyramid on the roof of Harrods.

At the store, where he instituted a dress code — even for customers — which he enforced in person, he installed a kitsch bronze memorial statue of Diana and Dodi dancing beneath the wings of an albatross.

As the owner of Fulham, he erected a larger-than-life, sequined statue of Michael Jackson outside the ground even though the singer only attended one match. When people complained, he said: “If some stupid fans don’t understand or appreciate such a gift, they can go to hell.”

Harrods takeover

Much of al-Fayed’s past remained murky — even his date of birth. He said he was born in then British-ruled Egypt in 1933. However, a British government inquiry into the Harrods takeover said 1929.

Al-Fayed became resident in Britain in 1974 and added the al to his name. Casting this as self-aggrandisement, the satirical magazine Private Eye nicknamed him the “Phoney Pharaoh”.

In 1985 he and his brothers beat businessman Roland “Tiny” Rowland to Harrods, one of the most famous shops in the world.

Al-Fayed hoped that buying the store would win him acceptance in British society. Instead, it led to a series of bitter confrontations.

Rowland took al-Fayed and his brothers to a Department of Trade inquiry, claiming that they had misrepresented their wealth.

The inquiry cast doubt on their origins as part of a wealthy business family, past business connections, and their independent financial resources.

After a quarter of century of ownership, al-Fayed sold Harrods to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in 2010.

Al-Fayed’s application for British citizenship was denied by the government in 1995. He said racism kept him on the fringe of acceptability.

A year earlier, al-Fayed had embarrassed the government by disclosing that he had made gifts and payments to politicians in return for them asking parliamentary questions for him. The so-called “cash-for-questions” scandal ended the careers of four politicians, including one minister.

The allegations of sleaze undermined the Conservatives, who lost a landslide election to Labour leader Tony Blair in 1997.

Diana and Dodi

That summer, al-Fayed’s son Dodi began a relationship with Princess Diana, who had divorced Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne. Dodi and Diana were pictured by British tabloids on holiday on a yacht in the south of France.

After travelling to Paris, the couple were killed when their Mercedes, driven at high speed by a chauffeur who had been drinking whisky and was trying to evade the paparazzi, crashed into a concrete pillar in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.

Beset by grief and an overwhelming sense of injustice, al-Fayed spent millions on legal battles to ensure there was an inquest.

When it started in London a decade after the crash, al-Fayed would accuse everyone from the royal family, Prime Minister Blair, Diana’s sister Sarah, the French embalmers of Diana’s body, and the Paris ambulance drivers of being implicated.

But the jury said the couple were unlawfully killed by their chauffeur’s driving. Al-Fayed said he accepted the verdict and gave up legal attempts to show they were murdered.

“I’m leaving the rest for God to get my revenge,” he said.