A detective who tried to bring Mohamed Al Fayed to justice over rape allegations has claimed the Harrods owner was protected by a network of powerful people.
Former police officer Mark Williams-Thomas, who helped to expose Jimmy Savile as a paedophile in 2012, was reportedly part of a police probe into the late Egyptian businessman’s alleged sex crimes while he was still alive.
Writing in The Mirror, Mr Williams-Thomas claimed there were five victims who were willing to testify against Mr Al Fayed, including a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old that were allegedly ‘attacked’ by him.
But after five months working on the case with the Metropolitan Police, the Crown Prosecution Service decided it would not take any action.
Mr Williams-Thomas said the women ‘were completely failed by the system’, adding that a network of powerful people around Mr Al Fayed ‘helped keep his criminality under wraps’.
Former police officer Mark Williams-Thomas claims he tried to bring Mohamed Al Fayed to justice over rape allegations but the Harrods owner was protected by a network of powerful people.
Mohamed Al Fayed is accused of raping multiple women during his time as Harrods owner from 1984 to 2010
Mohamed Al Fayed pictured with Princess Diana at the charity dinner for the Harefield Heart Unit held at Harrods in February 1996
Mr Williams-Thomas said he became aware of five different victims in 2015 who were willing to testify in court over Mr Al Fayed’s alleged crimes.
‘Detectives believed the victims and were really keen to prosecute. But after about five months the Crown Prosecution Service declared there was to be no action against Al-Fayed,’ he added.
Mr Williams-Thomas claimed that ‘members of the British establishment’ were aware of one incident in the 1990s where Mr Al-Fayed allegedly attacked a girl on a boat.
He added: ‘She was too scared to press charges, but after Al-Fayed applied for British citizenship, her well-connected father told government officials about the attack. He was told Al-Fayed would never get British citizenship. He never did.’
The detective said that there were several people who helped cover up Mr Al Fayed’s alleged crimes including the publicist and convicted sex offender Max Clifford.
Mr Williams-Thomas believes that had he tried to bring Mr Al Fayed to court shortly after his investigation into Jimmy Savile in 2012, then ‘the CPS would have gone ahead with the prosecution’.
He added he was ‘very disappointed that I was unable to help bring this prolific predator to justice’ but is hopeful that more victims will now come forward to reveal the ‘full truth and details of Al Fayed’s depravity’.
Gemma (pictured), who worked as his personal assistant between 2007 and 2009, says she was raped by Al Fayed during a work trip to Paris
It comes as the alleged victims of Mr Al Fayed shared their harrowing tales of abuse which they claim the billionaire former Harrods owner put them through.
Multiple women have come forward to claim the late Egyptian businessman sexually abused them in the Knightsbridge store and at his properties in the UK and abroad.
Witness have revealed the invasive medical exams that young women were coerced into undergoing and to the culture of fear Al Fayed presided over at the world’s most famous department store.
One accuser even recalled the sickening moment that the tycoon ordered her to clean herself up with a ‘bottle of Dettol’ moments after raping her on a business trip to Paris.
In total dozens of women have come forward to accuse Al Fayed, who rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous, of horrifying attacks ranging from sexual harassment to violent rapes.
Gemma, who worked as Al Fayed’s personal assistant between 2007 and 2009, claims she was subjected his perverted behaviour almost immediately after starting work for him.
She said this included him grabbing her breasts and demands she have sex with him, before he raped her at Villa Windsor, a former home of post-abdication King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson.
One of his alleged victims, Gemma, who worked for Al Fayed as a personal assistant between 2007 and 2009, says his behaviour would turn more frightening during work trips abroad
Gemma described her former boss Al Fayed to the new BBC investigation as ‘a serial rapist’
Speaking the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gemma said she would often try to avoid the worst of his behaviour by locking herself in her room or bathroom when on trips abroad.
She claimed how on one trip to Abu Dhabi she locked herself away and ignored him knocking on the door in the middle of the night, with Al Fayed becoming ‘really cross’ the next morning.
Gemma recalled: ‘He said: “You didn’t let me in last night, why did you not let me in? I told you if you’re coming on this trip you have to be nice with me.” When he said “be nice with me”, it meant he wanted you to please him sexually.’
She added that on one occasion she was able to ‘talk my way out of it’ when he came into her room wearing nothing by a silk gown and holding a tub of Vaseline in the middle of the night.
The alleged victim told host Emma Barnett she was then raped by him on a trip to Paris before callously being told to clean herself up afterwards.
Gemma said ‘He directed me to go into the bathroom and clean myself. And when I got in there he’d pointed me to a bottle of Dettol, that was on the side. It was on the side of the shower. And he said: “Just clean yourself”.
A new BBC documentary says the Egyptian-born businessman – who died in London aged 94 last August – was a serial sex attacker
Mohamed Al Fayed dons a Victoria emerald and diamond tiara as he launches Harrods’ New Year sale in 2001
Mr Al Fayed at the opening of the Egyptian Room in Harrods – which featured busts of himself and, later, a statue commemorating Diana and his son Dodi
‘And the time I thought – being the super-freakish person he was about germs – I just assumed that was the reason.
‘But looking back, now I’m old and more mature, I realise that was probably to cover up any kind of evidence that would have left his trace on me. He left the room and he acted the next day like nothing had happened.’
Gemma is one of multiple women to have spoken in a new BBC documentary titled Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods, with the alleged victims talking about their experiences with the tycoon.
She told filmmakers ‘I think Mohamed Al Fayed is a rapist – he is a serial rapist’ and claimed that afterwards she felt so unsafe that she was unable to speak up until he died.
Many of the women who have spoken up describe relentless sexual harassment from the billionaire, with this often beginning almost immediately after being hired.
Another of his alleged victims, Rachel – not her real name – told the BBC she was raped after staying at one of Mr Al Fayed’s apartments after a late shift at work.
She said: ‘I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over.
‘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.’
Many of those who spoke in the documentary claimed they had been forced to undergo invasive medical examinations, in which they were tested for sexually transmitted diseases with the results sent to Al Fayed himself.
One woman told filmmakers: ‘There is no benefit to anybody knowing how my sexual health is, unless you’re planning to sleep with somebody, which I find quite chilling now.’
Some of Fayed’s assaults are said to have been carried out at his Park Lane property in London
One of the women now speaking out, who says Fayed raped her at his London apartment told BBC investigators: ‘I made it obvious that I didn’t want that to happen. ‘I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over’
The current owners of luxury department store Harrods in London (pictured) have issued a statement saying: ‘While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future’
Mohamed Al Fayed with the Queen in 1997. His business connections and charity work saw him mixing with high society despite his complaints about what he saw as establishment bias
It was part of an alleged ‘culture of fear’ which Al Fayed presided over at the store, with staff claiming the tycoon would scare people into doing what he wanted.
Another woman told of being raped at the Mayfair address as a teenager, describing staff at Harrods as being treated as his ‘playthings’.
She said: ‘Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass whatsoever.
‘We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said ‘jump’, employees would ask, ‘How high?”
The BBC said it heard testimony from 13 women who say they were sexually assaulted at Al Fayed’s 60 Park Lane property in London, four of whom allege they were raped there.
Harrods began settling claims with women who came forward alleging to have been sexually abused at his hands in July last year.
Harrods said in a statement to the BBC: ‘The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010.
‘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.’
‘It is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.
‘Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible.
‘This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.
‘While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.’
The Ritz hotel in Paris, formerly owned by Fayed, told the the BBC that it ‘strongly condemns all forms of behaviour that do not align with the values of the establishment’.
