Police interview three women in Al Fayed investigation

HE DIED in 2023 – and that’s when the investigation into allegations of sexual assault and rape were finally investigated. Now police have interviewed three women under caution in connection with trafficking women and facilitating these assaults.

Mohamed Al Fayed posed as a successful businessman. He was best known for owning luxury shop Harrods. Some women did report allegations of sexual assault to the police while he was still alive. These allegations were never properly investigated. After Al Fayed’s death, women began to speak out. Now 154 women have made formal complaints – and at last police launched an investigation.

Some women have spoken to the press about how Al Fayed groomed them. The usual story is that they were employed by Harrods and were constantly told what a great honour it was to work for Al Fayed. Once they trusted him, they were told to go to various locations, such as his homes or hotel rooms, “for work reasons”. Once they were there, he assaulted them – sometimes drugging them so that they did not fight him off.

Al Fayed is not the first rich man to pose as a successful businessman, moving in the highest circles of society. The tales of what he did to vulnerable women are reminiscent of some men named in the Epstein papers who were similarly rich, moved in similarly high circles – and believed that they had acquired a status that gave them an entitlement to abuse women.

Al Fayed could not have organised this alone. He must have had enablers working for him: people who would plan his diary, collaborate on the grooming, and send the women to the right place at the right time.

The police investigation has taken a long time, because there are so many survivors involved. The announcement that three women have now been interviewed by police is a welcome sign that progress is being made. We can only hope that the investigation picks up speed and that the women survivors of this man’s assaults are a step nearer obtaining justice.

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