Al-Fayed survivors say UK police missing 'bigger picture'

LONDON: Two decades after she was allegedly abused by Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, Isabella heard "chillingly" similar testimonies from other women, painting a picture of a sprawling, murky network of exploitation.

Isabella, whose name has been changed, is among at least seven survivors of the late Egyptian tycoon's alleged sexual offences who were recognised by the UK Home Office as victims of human trafficking this year.

Several told AFP they felt let down by the Metropolitan Police's ongoing investigation into Fayed's enablers, accusing officers of not going far enough to probe the "infrastructure of trafficking" — accusations the force denies.

Like other young women in Fayed's orbit, Isabella said she was "coerced" into undergoing an invasive gynaecological examination and given a fictitious job in the chairman's office.

"I would go into... a little windowless office, where he would try to make me take money," Isabella recounted, alleging that the Egyptian billionaire later abused her in the dim room.

She only realised years later that she might have been a victim of human trafficking at the hands of Fayed, who died aged 94 in 2023 without facing charges, despite multiple complaints.

"I thought trafficking was in the back of a lorry crossing borders," said Isabella, who is part of the survivor-led advocacy group No One Above (NOA).

Speaking with other women, "the similarities were chilling".

"I started to understand that what had happened to me had happened to a lot of other victims... I started to see the patterns in the grooming and the recruitment and the movement," she said.

She was referred by the charity Unseen to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the UK's official framework for identifying victims of modern slavery, and was confirmed as a trafficking victim in May.

Human trafficking involves facilitating a person's recruitment or movement, internationally or within the country, for the purpose of exploitation.

Operation Cornpoppy

When Isabella went to the Met in 2024, she said no one flagged the possibility of trafficking. UK police have a legal duty to refer potential human trafficking victims to the NRM.

The Met launched Operation Cornpoppy in 2024, following a BBC documentary on decades of abuse against Harrods employees.

In a July briefing seen by AFP, the force acknowledged it was "not prepared" initially for the scale of the investigation.

To date, 163 victims have reported allegations of sexual assault, rape, sexual exploitation and human trafficking to police in connection with Fayed.

But women told AFP there were likely many more who had not come forward because they feared the Met was focusing on Fayed's actions at Harrods rather than a wider network.

Several victims have alleged abuse at the tycoon's other ventures, including central London apartments, the Ritz hotel in Paris, Fulham Football Club and his fleet of private jets, known as Fayair.

The force says it is in contact with investigators in France, where a trafficking unit is handling an investigation into allegations against Mohamed and his brother, Salah Fayed.

'Jigsaw'

Joanna Brittan alleged that she was taken to Harrods by her employer and a Fayed associate, the late UAE diplomat Ahmed Obaidly, in 1990, when she was 25.

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She claims she was driven to Fayed's country house in Oxted, outside London, where she believes she was drugged and abused.

In a police interview this year — after first approaching the Met in 2017 — Brittan claimed an officer told her Operation Cornpoppy needed to focus on Fayed and Harrods or it would become "unmanageable".

"I nearly exploded," said Brittan. "Trafficking involves more than one person, and if you keep your investigation focused on only one man, you won't see the trafficking."

"You won't see the bigger picture, because it's like a jigsaw puzzle... If you treat everything in isolation, you can't see it."

The Home Office recognised this year that Brittan had been trafficked in London, Oxted, the Ritz and Cannes.

"Why did it take until 2026 for this formal recognition and referral to happen, when I had been reporting these circumstances to the Met since 2017?" Brittan asked.

The Met has since identified at least 70 potential trafficking victims and plans to refer them to the NRM.

It has also questioned seven people suspected of enabling Fayed, although no arrests have been made.

One serving Met officer and four former officers are being investigated by Britain's police watchdog for potential misconduct over their handling of allegations made against Fayed between 2008 and 2013.

"We continue to strive to secure justice for all Mohamed Al-Fayed's victims and recognise the important role of the National Referral Mechanism," a Met spokesperson told AFP.

"We will continue to assess all victim testimonies for evidence of human trafficking," it added.

Met 'overwhelmed'

But the force's track record has left survivors and experts doubtful.

"The Met still seems to be focusing specifically on incidents rather than... looking at the case as a much wider thing," said Phil Brewer, head of the Met's human trafficking unit until 2019.

"I think in some ways that the Met just are overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the investigation," he told AFP.

Rachael Louw alleges that she was abused by Mohamed and Salah — who died in 2010 — after being recruited into a Harrods training scheme.

She became Salah's personal assistant and was whisked off on a private jet to the French Riviera.

The Met told Louw that it did not need any additional information from her when she reported to the force in September 2024.

"They did not seem to be receptive to the trafficking elements of my case," Louw alleged.

In April, the Home Office confirmed her as a modern slavery victim.

"A growing number of women have described experiences that raise serious questions about trafficking," said Emma Jones, a lawyer at Leigh Day, which is acting for more than 50 women, including Louw.

"People say, 'Well, what does it matter whether it's trafficking or not?'" said Isabella.

But "the machinery that enabled this is very much alive... and this will keep happening."