A survivor of Mohamed Al Fayed’s sexual abuse has given a harrowing account of her suffering at his hands. Speaking at a press conference in London, the woman – named as Natacha – told reporters she “walked into a lion’s den” when she accepted a job with the former owner of Harrods department store in London.
She said working for him had involved a “layer of cover-ups, deceit, lies, manipulation, humiliation and gross sexual misconduct”.
Referring to Fayed, who died last year at 94, as “the chairman”, Natacha said he “preyed on the most vulnerable – those of us who needed to pay the rent and some of us who didn’t have parents to protect them”. She called him a “highly manipulative” figure who initially went out of his way to make her feel safe and comfortable at work.
“Mohamed Al Fayed, a sick predator, lured me in by using the same modus operandi he used time and time again. I was subjected to Aids and STD testing without consent, and now believe in hindsight I was checked for my purity.”
Once he had lured her in, Natacha said Fayed started to use private meetings to subject her to an escalating campaign of physical abuse. This culminated with her being summoned to his private apartment one night “on the pretext of a job review”.
She said: “The door was locked behind me … I saw his bedroom door partially open – there were sex toys on view. I felt petrified. I perched myself at the very end of the sofa and then … Mohamed Al Fayed, my boss, the person I worked for, pushed himself on to me.”
She said after she was able to fight to free herself from his attack, “he laughed at me. He then composed himself and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was never to breathe a word of this to anyone. If I did, I would never work in London again, and he knew where my family lived. I felt scared and sick.”
Another survivor told the BBC she was raped after staying at one of Fayed’s apartments after a late shift at work. “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 said.
“I remember feeling his body on me, the weight of him. Just hearing him make these noises. And just going somewhere else in my head.”
Another woman, who worked as one of Fayed’s personal assistants between 2007 and 2009, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she was “required” to have gynaecological tests to get the job and believed, looking back, the tests were checking for sexually transmitted infections.
She said Fayed raped her during a trip to Paris and she felt “terrified” afterwards. “In Paris, there were security guards patrolling the house, there were security guards outside the house. We were locked in a gated property. We’d been escorted there that day by the police, so I felt like I couldn’t even go to the police, even if I could make my way out of the property.”
