I was shocked when I heard the allegations of rape and sexual abuse by the late Harrods boss Mohammed Al Fayed.
But I wasn’t surprised.
I worked in Harrods in the mid-1990s for a couple of years, as a sales assistant in his flagship Egyptian Hall, while trying to break through as an actor.
I saw Al Fayed pretty much every day I was at work, as he walked through my department along with his security guards.
Mohamed Al Fayed has been accused of rape by five women when they worked at Harrods
PAThe Egyptian Hall was his creation: a room front and centre of the ground floor which sold expensive decorative glass and figures, with sandstone effect ‘rock’ walls and, just below the ceiling, sphinxes circling the room. As if we’d been transported to some theme-park, Disneyfied version of Egypt.
The face of the sphinx was of Al Fayed himself.
Only metres from the beautiful, original Food Halls, but a world apart.
I wasn’t a fan, and on seeing the boss, would scuttle hurriedly in the opposite direction. I did not want to have to smile at him, much less speak.
I wouldn’t have been his type anyway.
A friend of mine who was much prettier and happy to smile nicely, caught his eye. She was quickly promoted to work in his office.
Despite the fact that Al Fayed has a very attractive and glamorous blond wife.
Another, very young and wildly pretty girl had been working in the Egyptian Hall for just a fortnight since she arrived from South Africa. I’d say she was about 19.
She disappeared and I was told the Chairman had taken her to work directly for him.
I later heard that Al Fayed had installed her in a flat in the Mayfair block where he himself lived. He had asked if she had a boyfriend (she hadn’t).
Apparently he later told her that if she had any friends as pretty as her and who would like the lifestyle, he “would look at them”.
I remember thinking that if someone gives you a flat to live in on one of the richest streets in the country, sooner or later they will want something in return.
I left Harrods soon after.
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Today Deputy PM Angela Rayner expressed concern over a culture of “powerful people who seem to get away with it.”
And for all the noise now, and the tarnishing of his reputation, he did get away with it.
Like Jimmy Saville, it’s only after death that all the horrors are emerging.
So he has totally escaped justice.
This new government has pledged to halt violence against women and girls.
They’re going to have their work cut out.
