‘Monster Mohamed Al Fayed groped me, demanded sex and threatened me’
Picked up at a bus stop and promised a career at Harrods, a woman who went on to be Mohamed Al Fayed’s PA spells out in gruelling detail the abuse she says she suffered almost daily.
Kate was standing at a bus stop when a woman complimented her clothes and said she would make a great personal shopper at Harrods.
The middle-aged stranger, who knew Mohamed Al Fayed, the luxury department store’s owner, asked for her number.
Kate was 31 and had recently been made redundant. “I thought ‘well that sounds really exciting’,” she recalls.
A few weeks later she was invited to Harrods’ Knightsbridge HQ to discuss a job. It turned out there was no opening for a stylist role but she was called back to “meet the boss” about a personal assistant vacancy.
For the next 13 months she worked as a PA for Al Fayed, during which time she says he groped her, constantly asked her for sex and threatened her with the loss of her job if she didn’t comply.
She sued him for sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination after leaving the job in 2010, and received a £60,000 (AUD$116,000) settlement. She signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement and handed over her laptop as part of the deal.
Kate is not among more than 20 women who participated in the BBC investigation Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods, exposing allegations of sexual assault and rape by the billionaire retailer, who died aged 94 last year, but said she felt vindicated by their accounts.
“He was definitely a monster, massively depraved, and just watching the documentary there were things I didn’t even realise, just how young some of these girls were, it’s just shocking,” she said.
More than 150 alleged victims and witnesses have made new inquiries to the legal team featured in the documentary in the two days since it aired on Thursday.
Richard Meeran, the co-head of the international department at the law firm Leigh Day, is representing one alleged victim. He believes there could be “hundreds” more “survivors” and is calling for a full public inquiry.
As well as pursuing legal action against Harrods, lawyers are considering trying to recoup compensation from Al Fayed’s sizeable estate.
In 2009 the Crown Prosecution Service concluded there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against Al Fayed following separate allegations he assaulted a 15-year-old girl in Harrods.
Al Fayed sold Harrods in 2010. The retailer has reached settlements with a number of people who have approached them with claims against its former owner since 2023. “We are doing everything we can to fix this,” a spokesman said.
After seeing the BBC documentary Kate has decided to share extracts from a diary she kept during her time working for Al Fayed from October 2009 to November 2010.
These are the extracts.
October 14, 2009
The first day he called me in for a chat in which he stated that he would like to make a career for me, possibly in fashion buying, he stated he would like me to travel with him and learn about the businesses.
He handed me £500 in cash to keep me going until I got paid. He also asked if I had a boyfriend to which I answered, “no”.
October 20, 2009
Chairman calls me into office and informs me he would like me to work in his other office at home (60 Park Lane) for the next few days.
He hands me another £500 in cash (to buy suitable clothes for work, i.e. ballet pumps, suits and shirts — this is not unusual for him to do with other girls too, he likes us to wear flat shoes instead of heels and smart trousers and shirts).
He gives me a kiss on the cheek as I leave his office.
October 22, 2009
Chairman calls me into his office at about 10.30pm and asks if I want to spend the night there and “make love” to him. I try to perceive this as some kind of joke and laugh it off.
He hands me another £500 in cash. As I get up to leave, he stands up to show me out and tries to force a kiss on my mouth and gropes my bottom as I leave.
October 23, 2009
Chairman calls me into his office and again tells me he wants to make a great career for me as a buyer, but in order for that to happen I would need to have a physical relationship with him.
He tells me that he isn’t going to rape me but if I decide not to, then my working life can be made difficult for me. He tells me to think about the proposal over the weekend and inform him of my decision on Monday.
November 6, 2009
Chairman calls me in and asks me if I have changed my mind yet. I say no and he wants to know why I am being so difficult.
He walks over to where I am seated and puts his hand on my back and tries to undo my bra strap and tells me to think about it some more.
November 7, 2009
Chairman comes into the office and approaches me to give me a novelty mug as a gift — it has a picture of him on it mocked up as the film character Rambo and he says I can “play with myself” while I look at it.
November 17, 2009
At almost exactly 9.30pm, the chairman called me in to his office to bring him a fax of the day’s figures.
When I went into the office, he was standing and approached me to take the figures — he asked me if I was going to stay the night there with him and stroked my right breast.
I clearly stated “no” to which he again asked why not and asks if I “like women instead”?
January 7, 2010
There had been considerable snow in London and I was working late. It was impossible for me to travel home. I decided to spend the night at the apartment.
At approximately 9.30pm, the chairman gestured to his bed remarking that I should sleep there. Of course, I did not do so.
February 25, 2010
I was called up to the bedroom of his penthouse (which is on the floor above our office) to take him his daily Harrods figures and Evening Standard.
I handed him his things and he immediately asked if I was going to stay with him that evening to have sex. I replied no and that was something I cannot do.
He persisted with this and told me that it was something I should do, so that he can do nice things for me, get me a better job, more money and property and a nice car. He said I was making him wait and that it was time for me to “wake up” (a phrase he often uses with me when I say no).
He then proceeded to pull me closer to him and put his hand inside my shirt to fondle my right breast. I pulled away and told him he couldn’t do that, to which he just laughed.
He then asked me to help him take his shoes off which I did and as I was kneeling in front of him helping with his shoes, he went to unzip the fly to his trousers and motioned for me to give him oral sex. I then got up a little shocked and proceeded to make my way back to the office.
It was his wife’s (Heini Wathen-Fayed) birthday on Thursday, February 25, and she was in the premises when the events occurred.
April 20, 2010
He was up in his bedroom and he called for me to take his things up and take his cases to security (in preparation for going to Harrods) and help put his shoes on!
While I was up there, he again told me to bring my things so that I could stay tomorrow night and that he would increase my salary some more, and he wants to send me to work in the fashion department for six weeks before making me an assistant fashion buyer (a top job in the industry) making £150,000.
April 21, 2010
He played the same game with his walking stick. Attempting to prod me with it towards the top half of my body. He then grabbed his genitals in quite an aggressive manner and said, “you want to see these”. I shook my head to say no and he then told me that I could go at 9.30 that night.
He always carries a portable phone with him and often pokes the long antennae towards my private regions making out that it’s a joke — when it’s actually just very embarrassing.
June 8, 2010
Mr Fayed had become more aggressive putting his hand down my shirt and inside my bra groping my breasts and sometimes running his hand up my thigh to my crotch.
Despite his age, he is physically quite a strong-handed man.
June 25, 2010
I’m due to be off on Tuesday and Wednesday next week and after that I don’t know if I can go back at all. It’s an unhealthy environment and I am 100 per cent sure that his more senior members of staff all know what goes on and their attitudes, too, have been almost of a bullying nature at work. It is becoming more and more difficult to handle.
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