Survivors of Mohamed Al Fayed’s rape legacy recount their ordeal

Alexandria-born Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed Al Fayed first arrived in London in 1965 after allegedly swindling E£100,000 from Saudi Arabia's Khashoggi family and $150,000 from Haitian autocrat François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. He was a 36-year-old conman with a fabricated backstory and a propensity for telling lies to ingratiate himself with British society. He used a false name and a false date of birth and had such a complicated relationship with the truth that he had long since lost the ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

During one of the most hostile takeovers in British corporate history, Mohamed acquired the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge in 1985 for £615 million in a high-stakes game of commercial chess, reportedly using the Sultan of Brunei's power of attorney. He subsequently courted the British establishment by sponsoring Prince Charles' Windsor Park polo tournaments in 1986 and making lavish contributions to Queen Elizabeth II's charity events in 1988.

After a Harrods charity dinner in February 1996, he repeatedly showered Diana, Princess of Wales, with expensive gifts and eventually encouraged a relationship between her and his eldest son, Emad "Dodi" Al Fayed. The relationship ended in their deaths in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997. Beneath Mohamed's immense wealth and outward charm was a manipulative man who engaged in serious sexual misconduct.

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According to Alison Kervin, author of Monster of Harrods: Al Fayed and the Secret Shameful History of a British Institution, Mohamed was one of the most prolific sexual predators and abusers of modern times. She alleges that he lied, deceived, cheated, degraded, kidnapped and raped women. For 25 years, Mohamed was not only chairperson of Harrods but also the architect of a culture of sexual exploitation within the Knightsbridge store, she argues.