Chatting with the BBC, one in all his alleged victims, Sophia, who labored as his private assistant from 1988 to 1991, stated he tried to rape her greater than as soon as. She stated: “He was vile”.
After Fayed was featured in two current sequence of Netflix’s The Crown, she spoke of her anger at his portrayal as a pleasing and gregarious character.
Sophie, who didn’t give her second title, stated: “That makes me indignant, folks shouldn’t keep in mind him like that. It’s not how he was.”
One other alleged sufferer, Rachel, not her actual title, who was 19 on the time, stayed in one in all Fayed’s flats as an alternative of taking a taxi house on his insistence after working late on Harrods enterprise.
He then invited her to his private condo, the place he requested her to sit down on the mattress, together with his hand on her leg and a agency grip, she stated.
“I made it apparent that I didn’t need that to occur. I didn’t give consent. I simply needed it to be over,” she stated.
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“I keep in mind feeling his physique on me, the burden of him. Simply listening to him make these noises. And simply going some place else in my head.”
Rachel informed the BBC: “He raped me. Afterwards, you blame your self. You’re there to do a job and that is your boss standing there in entrance of you in a dressing robe. And so even once you’re making an attempt to get out of the scenario, I’m making an attempt to not offend him.”
Rape allegation investigated by police in 2015
Fayed had been accused of groping and sexually assaulting feminine staff throughout his lifetime, together with a rape allegation which was investigated by police in 2015 however didn’t result in any costs.
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Born in Egypt, Fayed was a businessman within the Center East earlier than shifting to the UK within the Nineteen Seventies.
He took management of Harrods in 1985, and bought the Ritz lodge in Paris in 1979. He was additionally the proprietor of Fulham FC between 1997 and 2013.
His son Dodi Fayed died in a automobile crash in Paris alongside Diana, Princess of Wales. Within the decade after the incident, he repeatedly claimed that Dodi had been murdered in a plot by the British institution.
However he was pressured to reluctantly concede defeat after a six-month inquest in 2007 and 2008. The jury returned illegal killing verdicts on each Diana and Dodi, however pinned the blame on the drink-driving of chauffeur Henri Paul, who additionally died within the crash.
After 26 years in cost, in 2010, Fayed bought Harrods to the Qatari royal household for a reported £1.5 billion. On the time, he stated issues with pension fund trustees have been behind his determination to promote the shop.
The Telegraph, London