Four more women allegedly abused by ex-Harrods boss confirmed as human trafficking victims

LONDON – Four women who allege abuse by the late Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed were confirmed as victims of human trafficking by the UK’s interior ministry, a group representing the survivors told AFP on Aug 3.

The former business tycoon, who died in 2023 at age 94 without facing any prosecution, has been accused by dozens of women of assault, rape and human trafficking over a period of more than three decades.

Many worked on the shop floor at Harrods in London or were hired as assistants at his various businesses including the Ritz hotel in Paris.

Four women, who use the pseudonyms Isabella, Justine, Elizabeth and Margo and founded the “No One Above” advocacy group, have now been recognised as victims of human trafficking.

Their experiences, dating from the 1990s to after 2010, include international and domestic trafficking, Isabella confirmed in e-mails to AFP.

They were referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), Britain’s official framework to identify and support victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, by the Unseen UK charity.

The four received “conclusive grounds” decisions that they were victims between May and July.

The BBC reported in April that a fifth woman, Rachael Louw, was confirmed as a victim of human trafficking after reporting being abused by Al-Fayed and his late brother Salah in the United Kingdom and France.

Isabella, who worked in Al-Fayed’s Harrods office in 2001, said she was recognised as a trafficking victim in May.

“One thing that the public doesn’t understand is they think this was one bad man, but he couldn’t have done what he did without Harrods processing women to him and silencing them afterwards,” she told the Press Association news agency, which first reported the trafficking referral decisions.

Police probes

To date, 157 victims have reported allegations that they were sexually assaulted, raped, or trafficked by the former tycoon to London’s Metropolitan Police.

Dozens more who worked at his luxury department store have filed for compensation under a redress scheme, set up after a 2024 BBC documentary revealed the scale of his alleged offences.

The Met has so far questioned six people suspected of enabling Al-Fayed’s offences, although it has not made any arrests yet. Some of them were questioned under suspicion of human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Some victims, including Louw, have expressed frustrations that the Met is not focusing on the trafficking aspect of the alleged offences.

Earlier in 2026, Louw told AFP that she had instead turned to France, where a police investigation into the Al-Fayed brothers’ abuse is being handled by a human trafficking unit. AFP