The number of women coming forward to accuse the late department store magnate Mohamed al Fayed with sexual assault is multiplying—quickly. The BBC reports that another 65 women have told the outlet they were abused by al Fayed, who owned Harrods in the UK. All of this began last month when the BBC aired a documentary alleging that al Fayed systematically raped and abused young women within his store empire. Dozens more women came forward after the film aired.
- Hundreds: "Since the airing of the documentary, so far there are 200+ individuals who are now in the Harrods process to settle claims directly with the business," the store tells the BBC.
- Alleged prisoner: One woman tells the BBC that at age 19 she answered an ad for a nanny position in the UK in 1985 and was given a small room in al Fayed's Oxted mansion. "The job didn't exist," she says. "He didn't need a nanny." Instead, she came to realize she was hired to be a sexual "plaything." She says that she was kept as a "prisoner" at the mansion for several days and that al Fayed raped her multiple times. She was a virgin before taking the job. When she was finally allowed to leave, a staffer threatened her to stay silent, which she did, until now.
Read the
full story, which includes the account of another woman who says al Fayed assaulted her in 1977, eight years before he bought Harrods. Al Fayed was the father of Princess Diana's boyfriend Dodi al Fayed. (More
Mohamed al Fayed stories.)