A high-ranking diplomat complained to the Government after his daughter was sexually assaulted and imprisoned by Mohamed Al-Fayed on his yacht in the south of France.
The Mail on Sunday has learned that the disgraced billionaire, who died last year aged 94, is alleged to have locked the young woman in a cabin for 36 hours after the attack, described by a source as one of the worst he carried out.
It is understood the influential envoy’s high-level protest dealt the tycoon’s hopes of British citizenship a significant blow.
At the time – 1989 – Al-Fayed, an Egyptian, was facing questions about his takeover of Harrods four years earlier.
A Department of Trade and Industry inquiry had described him as ‘unreliable, untrue and bogus’.
Mohamed Al-Fayed pictured sitting on his yacht in Saint Tropez, France, in 2009
In one of worst attacks he carried out, Al-Fayed is believed to have locked a young woman in the cabin of his yacht (pictured) for 36 hours after sexually assaulting her
Alleged victim Lindsay (centre) was told she needed to see a doctor before starting work at Harrods, and was given ‘an invasive examination’
This was later held against him in his long-running campaign for a British passport.
But sources say the yacht assault, revealed for the first time today, also had a bearing on the decision to turn down his 1994 application when John Major was Prime Minister.
Last week it emerged that Al-Fayed, an alleged serial predator, was reported to Scotland Yard by at least 19 different women for rape, assault and trafficking.
The alleged crimes were recorded by police between 2005 and 2023, but none resulted in a charge.
The Metropolitan Police have appealed for more victims to come forward and are investigating whether charges could be brought against other individuals.
Many women interviewed for the BBC documentary Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods said that when they began working for Al-Fayed they were required to undergo medicals, including invasive sexual health tests.
Four female and two male doctors conducted the tests. The MoS can reveal that one, Dr Thomas Bozek, now 75, is still practising. At the time, his then wife Alison Bozek worked for Al-Fayed.
But on Friday it emerged that the General Medical Council (GMC) refused to investigate alleged medical malpractice at Harrods in 2017 because too much time had passed and it wasn’t ‘in the greater public interest’.
Hired as a PA to Al-Fayed, Lindsay, now 55, was told she needed to see a doctor before starting work.
She told the MoS that Dr Bozek carried out ‘an invasive examination on me, without a chaperone.
‘As well as a smear test and checks for sexually transmitted infections, he checked my ovaries. I didn’t receive any results – they went to Al-Fayed. I hope the GMC start an enquiry.’