Black staff at Harrods would leave before Mohamed Al Fayed toured the store because he was racist, former employees have claimed.
A warning would be issued when the late tycoon was on his way, says a former security guard, which was followed by a “beeline of certain people, certain races”, exiting so he would not spot them. The ex-Harrods staff member has told the BBC: “The level of racism was very clear.” It has previously been reported that Al Fayed kept a sharp eye out for black workers, so that he could sack them.
“He got rid of one black man for scratching his face and another for being badly dressed. The former security guard was speaking after a BBC documentary broadcast in September which included claims from more than 20 women that Al Fayed sexually assaulted or raped them.
Al Fayed in a car he donated to the Met Police
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PA)
More than five of the late Harrods owner’s former associates are currently under investigation by the Metropolitan Police. It is claimed they may have enabled Al Fayed to target women and girls between 1977 and 2014, one who says she was just 13. At least 90 women have come forward to police claiming they too were victims. Henry, not his real name, said black people, and also other staff who didn’t fit a certain look, would then leave the shop floor, in a “robotic” movement before the tycoon arrived. “It seemed very much like the protocol that [they] would disappear,” he added.
The Harrods store in Knightsbridge
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SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The only staff who remained on the shop floor were “young, thin, blonde”, although some non-white door guards did stay in position. Henry said the other black staff would exit the building through a tunnel, connecting the store to an office across the road. They would return to work once Al Fayed had left, he said. He also told how there was a culture of “paranoia, fear and bullying” at Harrods. Henry said that when he started he had been warned not to buy a monthly travel pass because “you could be here today and you [could] be gone today”.
Another former member of Harrods staff, Anna, said when she worked in the men’s tailored suit department and was told not to employ anyone who was black, because “the customers wouldn’t like it”. The Met has been criticised after it emerged 21 alleged victims came forward with complaints about Al Fayed while he was still alive but he was never prosecuted. Investigators twice sent files for a charging decision to the CPS, once in 2008 relating to three victims and again in 2015 linked to one other. No charges were ever brought before Al Fayed died in 2023 aged 94.