Lawyers acting for alleged victims of Mohamed al Fayed have said they have been contacted by over 400 people, including further alleged victims and witnesses.
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Dean Armstrong KC said those who have contacted the Justice for Harrods Survivors group are not just from the London department store – which Fayed owned from 1985 until 2010 – but from Fulham FC and “various places” associated with the businessman.
Mr Armstrong said the first letter of claim has been sent to Harrods by lawyers representing alleged victims of the store’s former owner, marking the “beginning of the formal legal process”.
“Our survivors have been let down by significant parts of our society and the threats to them and the obstacles placed in front of us as we seek to navigate the path to justice for them,” Mr Armstrong said.
A string of allegations have been made against the former Harrods and Fulham FC owner following the release of a documentary about Fayed, who died last year.
One of those was Paul Gascoigne’s daughter, Bianca, who told Sky News earlier this month she was groomed and sexually assaulted by Fayed when she worked at the London department store as a teenager.
Former Fulham Women captain Ronnie Gibbons also alleged she was twice sexually assaulted.
Those are in addition to 21 women who went to the Metropolitan Police between 2005 and 2023 with sex crime allegations against the businessman.
Harrods has previously said it is “utterly appalled” by the claims of abuse and said it is a “very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Fayed between 1985 and 2010”.
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