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Sexual violence, threats and espionage: Mohamed Al-Fayed’s accusers speak out
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Sexual violence, threats and espionage: Mohamed Al-Fayed’s accusers speak out

Cheska Hill-Wood was 19 in 1994 when she began working for the former tycoon, who died last year aged 94.

Fayed was there from the moment they interviewed, they explained.

Cheska, who was an art student, believes Fayed’s team spotted her photo in a magazine before she was contacted by Harrods.

“I guess my face matched his requirements. I was young and very naive,” she said.

After being hired, a doctor at Harrods gave Jen and Cheska gynecological exams.

“The doctor made no secret of the fact that I was being examined to make sure I was clean,” said Jen, who is now 54.

“And when I asked him what that meant, he said he needed to know I was a virgin.”

‘Terrified’

Fayed demanded that she never have a boyfriend.

“We weren’t allowed to have sex with anyone,” she said.

During five years at Harrods, Jen said she suffered “several sexual assaults” and attempted rapes in Fayed’s office and at his London home on Park Lane.

Harrods said it had been contacted by more than 250 people seeking to negotiate an out-of-court settlement. London police say they have been contacted by 60 people, with accusations dating back to 1979.

Jen said she was “ashamed” and “too terrified” to tell her colleagues or family about the assaults at the time.

Like many other accusers, she spoke of tapped phones and cameras in offices.

Mohammed Al-Fayed speaks to the media at Craven Cottage Ground in Fulham, London, August 3, 2010. Photo / AFP
Mohammed Al-Fayed speaks to the media at Craven Cottage Ground in Fulham, London, August 3, 2010. Photo / AFP

While she was having a secret romantic relationship, Fayed summoned her and gave her a list of places the couple had been seen together, confirming her fears that she was being followed.

“It made me realize that it wasn’t paranoia, but that it was actually happening.”

“I was hoping I was the only one,” Jen said, adding that she was “horrified” by the number of people who came forward to accuse Fayed.

The catalyst was the broadcast of the BBC documentary Al Fayed: predator at Harrods in September.

Several former Harrods employees have accused Al-Fayed of sexual abuse. Photo/AFP
Several former Harrods employees have accused Al-Fayed of sexual abuse. Photo/AFP

After the broadcast, Harrods, bought by Qatari interests in 2010, “condemned” the behavior of its former owner and apologized for having abandoned the “victims”.

Jen, who asked that her last name not be used, waited until the day after the documentary aired to tell her husband and parents about her experience at Harrods.

“Absolute monster”

Cheska Hill-Wood immediately told her mother about her attack.

She was an aspiring actress and Fayed had offered to introduce her to his son Dodi, a producer.

Fayed took her to his room one evening after work and auditioned her for a Peter Pan movie.

She was forced to wear a swimsuit for the camera and recite the script lines “take me, take me please.”

The then 60-year-old man grabbed her and kissed her forcefully, Cheska said.

Alleged victims Gemma (left), Lindsay and Jen pose for a photo outside the venue of a press conference organized by the legal team featured in "Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods"in London. Photo/AFP
Alleged victims Gemma (left), Lindsay and Jen pose for a photo outside the venue of a press conference organized by the legal team featured in ‘Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods’, in London. Photo/AFP

She managed to escape and never set foot in the office or Harrods again.

Both women spoke to the media shortly after. Jen told her story in Vanity Fair magazine in the 1990s on condition of anonymity, but a Harrods security official contacted her to threaten her and her family.

Fayed sued the magazine for defamation and a settlement was reached “out of respect for a grieving father” after his son Dodi died alongside Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Cheska spoke in the 1990s for a documentary that was never broadcast.

She spoke again in 2017, with her face uncovered, for the British television channel Channel Four.

“But nothing happened after that. The police did not pursue,” she said, adding that the ordeal left her feeling desperate.

Both spoke of their “anger” after his death last year.

“This absolute monster collapsed without being pursued. The anger is immense,” said Cheska, now 50.

She now hopes that “the many people who do her dirty work”, such as arranging medical appointments or recruiting women, will be brought to justice.