Lawyers representing the former Harrods employees who claim they were raped and sexually assaulted by late billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed have described him as ‘a monster’ as they laid bare today his ‘vast web of abuse’.
It comes as multiple women came forward to claim the late Egyptian businessman sexually abused them in the Knightsbridge store and at his luxury properties in the UK and abroad.
So horrific was the alleged abuse suffered at the hands of Al Fayed, lawyers representing his victims have compared him to sexual predators Jimmy Savile and Jeffrey Epstein.
Barrister Bruce Drummond told a press conference: ‘This is one of the worse cases of sexual exploitation that I and perhaps the world has ever seen.
‘It was horrific, just horrific. It’s horrific because of the acts carried out on these women and girls.
‘It was horrific because it was the system that procured them, enabling the abuse of these young women and its horrific, because the effect this sexual abuse and of Harrods’ institutional betrayal have had on our clients.’
Barrister Dean Armstrong KC told the press conference the case of Mohammed Al Fayed ‘combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein’.
He said: ‘I have many years of practice… I have never seen a case as horrific as this.
‘This case combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein.
‘Savile because in this case, as in that, the institution, we say, knew about the behaviour.
‘Epstein because in that case, as in this, there was a procurement system in place to source the women and girls – as you know there are some very young victims.
‘And Weinstein, because it was a person at the very top of the organisation who was abusing his power.
‘We will say plainly, Mohammed Al Fayed was a monster.’
Mr Armstrong KC said it is time Harrods ‘took responsibility’ and ‘set matters right’.
He told the press conference: ‘We are here to say publicly and to the world, or to Harrods in front of the world, that it is time that they took responsibility, and it is time that they set matters right, and that is something they should do as soon as possible.
‘They need to face up to accept the responsibility, that they have full culpability for the abuse that these women suffered.
‘Today, we are going to set out our claim and how our claim shows an abject failure of corporate responsibility and a failure to provide a safe system of work.’
This is a developing story.
