Lawyers acting for alleged victims of Mohamed al Fayed have said they have been contacted by over 400 people, including further alleged victims and witnesses.
Lawyer Dean Armstrong KC said those who have contacted the Justice for Harrods Survivors group are not just from the London department store – which Fayed owned from 1985 until 2010 – but from Fulham FC and “various places” associated with the businessman.
A string of allegations have been made against the former Harrods and Fulham FC owner following the release of a documentary about Fayed, who died last year.
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Mr Armstrong said the first letter of claim has been sent to Harrods by lawyers representing alleged victims of the store’s former owner, marking the “beginning of the formal legal process”.
“Our survivors have been let down by significant parts of our society and the threats to them and the obstacles placed in front of us as we seek to navigate the path to justice for them,” Mr Armstrong said.
Bruce Drummond, also speaking at the conference, said when the group first became involved in the case, there were allegations from four women against Fayed. This has now grown to 421 enquiries.
He said the majority of claims are from the UK, but have also come from the US, Canada, Asia, Australia and other parts of Europe.
“That, in our opinion, is an industrial scale of abuse,” Mr Drummond said, adding: “Abuse that could have only been perpetrated with a system that enabled the abuse to happen.
(L-R) Bruce Drummond, Dean Armstrong KC and Maria Mulla from the Justice for Harrods Survivors group
“That is what is so key to this case and why this case, as I’ve said before, in many ways, is the worst case of corporate sexual abuse of women that the world has ever known.”
He said the group has “credible evidence” that Fayed carried out alleged abuse at a numnber of difference locations including his residences on Park Lane in London, his estate in Surrey, his aircraft, the Ritz Hotel in Paris and on his private yacht.
“Every young lady in his orbit was a target,” Mr Drummond said.
One of those who has alleged to have been abused by Fayed is Paul Gascoigne’s daughter, Bianca.
Speaking to Sky News earlier this month she said she was groomed and sexually assaulted by Fayed when she worked at the London department store as a teenager.
Former Fulham Women captain Ronnie Gibbons also alleged she was twice sexually assaulted.
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Those are in addition to 21 women who went to the Metropolitan Police between 2005 and 2023 with sex crime allegations against the businessman.
Harrods has previously said it is “utterly appalled” by the claims of abuse and said it is a “very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Fayed between 1985 and 2010”.
