When Mike Radford, an executive producer at the BBC, was approached last year about the idea of a documentary on Mohamed Al Fayed’s sexual crimes, he was concerned that it might not be worth putting the women through the trauma of recounting their ordeals on screen.
“If we did not prove that his sexual offences were of the most serious nature, there was a danger that the audience might shrug and say, ‘Well, we know that already,’” he said. The threshold was high; Fayed had to be proven to be a rapist for the world to finally listen.
Since the broadcast last week of Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, in which five women claimed to have been raped by the billionaire, more than 200 women have come forward and the police have said they are investigating whether there were accomplices to his crimes. On Friday, Omar Fayed, the late businessman’s 37 year-old son, issued a statement in which he said he had been horrified by the “extent and explicit nature of the allegations” against his father which he said had “thrown into question, the loving memory I had of him”. “How this matter could have been concealed for so long and in so many ways, raises further disturbing questions”, he added. But such impact was not a given.
Stories of Fayed’s predatory behaviour around young women had been in the ether since the mid-1990s but nothing ever seemed to stick. There was never any public outcry or major interest on Fleet Street.
Vanity Fair was sued after writing in 1995 about the invasive medical examinations given to women and how Fayed would chase secretaries around the office and “try to stuff money down women’s blouses”.
The two parties later settled the case. No damages were paid on the basis that Vanity Fair agreed to place all evidence in locked storage. Fayed cheerfully went on to buy Fulham football club two years later.
Tom Bower’s unauthorised biography in 1998 sought to build on the Vanity Fair allegations, with the covert help of its UK editor, Henry Porter. Bower reported that young women were sexually assaulted and paid off with bundles of £50 notes.
It made little or no impact in the national newspapers. Fayed’s toxic world kept on spinning.
When in 2008, Martin Smith, then the Mail on Sunday’s crime correspondent, brought in the story that Fayed was under investigation for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old, the journalist was left frustrated that the paper was unable to name him after receiving legal letters from Fayed’s lawyers.
The paper described Fayed as a “senior Harrods executive”. This was despite the Met police, unusually, confirming that Fayed was the suspect, Smith said. The CPS ultimately did not prosecute the case on the grounds that the victim had been confused about the date on which she said she had been attacked.
As a result, the allegations of sexual abuse were scarcely mentioned in the obituaries of the “ebullient” billionaire after his death in 2023 at the age of 94. Why had Fleet Street been so loath to publish?
Vanity Fair had, in part, decided to settle out of sympathy after the death of Diana, Princes of Wales and Fayed’s son, Dodi, said David Hooper, a libel lawyer who worked with Porter.
That traumatic event for the billionaire provided him with some cover from scrutiny in other quarters too, according to senior journalists. But those who have been the chief drivers of exposing Fayed’s crimes also point to more sinister explanations.
Fayed was “very litigious”, said Radford, and such was the level of surveillance and harassment of the female victims by Fayed’s security chief, John Macnamara, that any media outlet would be taking a gamble that their witnesses would stay the course and be willing to repeat their claims in court.
Along with Fayed’s willingness to spend exorbitant amounts of money on libel actions, he was very happy to play dirty.
Such was the fear of Macnamara that one of the victims moved into Porter’s basement. Bower said he received an ominous call from the head of security of the ruler of Dubai, a source for his book on Fayed. “He said, ‘I’ve got good news, bad news and good news,’” Bower said. “The bad news was that Macnamara had looked in London for someone to break my fingers so I couldn’t write the book. The good news was he failed, and the bad news was, he was now looking in Liverpool.”
Fayed’s “gangsters”, as Bower put it, were also quite skilled at what they did. Max Clifford, who died while serving a sentence for sex offences, was on his books and admitted in front of an undercover camera in 2008 of being able to trade with the tabloids when stories came up about “the randy old sod”.
But there was soft power too. Harrods had a huge advertising budget, and newspapers and magazines were not keen to lose access to it, said Porter.
The smooth-talking Michael Cole, the former BBC man who was Fayed’s PR man between 1988 and 1998, had excellent relationships with senior media figures.
They would enjoy good lunches and the odd Harrods hamper, although there were some things in Fayed’s world that were outside Cole’s control. Two Fleet Street executives were invited by Fayed to take some fur coats home during a visit to Harrods, according to one senior journalist. They later had their homes broken in to and the furs went missing.
Cole was handsomely paid for his efforts. One BBC journalist interviewed by Fayed to replace him after his retirement said the remuneration package on offer was £300,000, a flat in Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge and a chauffeur-driven car.
Cole is believed to have been on a £1m salary, although those applying for the position soon recognised the risks.
“[Fayed’s] opening remark to me when he walked in was charming: ‘Who’s this cunt?’” recalled one applicant.
According to the applicant, Fayed went on: “‘So you’re a big dick from the BBC? How big is your dick? Let’s get them out to see … You have big hair, bigger than Michael Cole hair … Prince Philip killed my son, didn’t he?”
Since last week, websites and newspapers have been filled with stories of Fayed’s alleged crimes. Lawyers are circling around Harrods over its admissions of failings as a company. Radford expressed his admiration for the women who came forward and broke the dam. He said: “What they did was, [make] other women, all of them, gain strength from each other.”