Ontario woman recounts 'frightening' moment with Harrods's owner Mohamed Al-Fayed
'I was scared, I didn't have a colleague there with me'
WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it
For Amy, working at the luxury London department store Harrods was a dream that soon became a nightmare.
The Peterborough, Ont., native is one of dozens of women requesting anonymity after accusing Mohamed Al-Fayed — the late Egyptian entrepreneur and billionaire who owned Harrods for 25 years — of sexual abuse.
Al-Fayed is alleged to have groped, kissed and, in some cases, raped at least 37 women.
CBC News has agreed not to publish Amy's surname.
A recent BBC News investigation has produced a podcast and documentary exploring these accusations and the "unsafe system of work" Harrods maintained, according to Dean Armstrong, one of the lawyers in the documentary and a member of the survivors' legal team.CBC News has learned at least three of the complainants are Canadian, the youngest of whom was only 16 at the time.
In 1993, Amy, then fresh out of university, participated in a student work-abroad program that found her selling handbags on the shop floor of Harrods.
"It was full of luxury and wonders and beauty. It was a dream, a dream come true," she said.
Amy spoke with CBC News and other Canadian media in London on Friday, recounting her time at the "very glamorous" store.
It wasn't long after she started there that she was approached by human resources and told that Al-Fayed wanted to meet her. She was also instructed to "look good for him."
That meeting won her a spot working in Al-Fayed's office upstairs along with a select group of other women. She says this was one of "the first phases of isolation.
Al-Fayed became "very possessive," she said, and told her: "You have to be where I tell you to be, when I tell you to be there."
Amy says she was often invited on business trips, during which her passport was taken and she would have only have "the clothes on her back" as she was shuttled away with Al-Fayed.
She says she was never told when they would return nor given access to a phone.
"I never knew where I was going to be or when I would be delivered to my flat in London," she said.
Harrods has said it is "utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse" and that it failed its employees.
"The Harrods of today is a very different organization to the one owned and controlled by Al-Fayed between 1985 and 2010," it said in a statement, adding that a reparations process was put in place in 2023 for complainants "to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved."
Amy described one particularly "frightening" work trip during her second year at Harrods, when she was taken to the Villa Windsor, the former Parisian estate of Edward VIII and his American wife, Wallis Simpson.
Upon arrival, Amy says she was greeted with canapes and champagne – "all very glamorous and exciting" – before being whisked to the Hôtel Ritz for dinner, which was, at the time, another one of Al-Fayed's businesses.
The night concluded with Amy being shown to her own small, private room back at the Villa Windsor.
"I was scared, I didn't have a colleague there with me," she said. "And then the door handle turned."
Amy says Al-Fayed came into her room, wearing only a towel, and forced himself on her as she lay in bed.
That was when, she says, she had a moment of realization.
"Something came to me and I just said [out loud], 'If my mother only knew.' And that stopped him. He just stopped in his tracks, got up, and left."
Amy says breakfast the next morning was business as usual but she was consumed by fear.
"We had no way to leave," she said. "I had no passport. I had no home … We were very, very isolated."
Amy continued to work at Harrods, eager to maintain the stream of income to support her life in London, but she says she never felt she could confide in her coworkers or supervisors about what happened on that fateful trip to France.
"There was no opportunity to dialogue with anyone about our feelings, our experiences, our doubts about what's happening … But when one of us would get called into [Al-Fayed's] office, we knew when they came out that something had happened."
Amy eventually left to pursue a career in education. She says it wasn't until she recently received a call from the BBC documentary crew, nearly 30 years later, that she was able to name her experience for what it was: abuse.
"Finally, someone's here and someone's calling it out and saying to me, 'That's what happened to you. That was assault. That was abuse. That was intimidation, humiliation,'" she said.
"And it was just suddenly hearing what it actually was, I think that's when I realized, 'Well, it's time to do something about it."
Amy has joined the ranks of more than 30 women who said Friday they will be bringing a civil case against Harrods — because Al-Fayed died in 2023.
Al-Fayed "was a monster… but he was a monster enabled by a system." Armstrong, the lawyer, said at a news conference on Friday, joined by high-profile American lawyer Gloria Allred.
That system, Amy says, left her and so many other women feeling alone in their trauma. Until now.
"Having this experience and finally breaking the walls down and finding out that we all have stories that are so parallel and so well structured, it helps the isolation go away," she said.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
For anyone affected by family or intimate partner violence, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services.
If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
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