Mohamed Al Fayed's abuse 'could have been on same scale as Jimmy Savile'

Speaking to the BBC, Dame Jasvinder Sanghera said Al Fayed’s maltreatment “went acold and wide” and that she had been contacted by a erstwhile pupil from a schoolhouse for deaf children astir the abuser.

Scores of allegations against the erstwhile section store proprietor person been made aft a BBC exposure successful September detailing claims of rape, sexual assault and harassment.

“We could beryllium talking astir thing connected the standard of Jimmy Savile,” Dame Jasvinder told BBC Radio 4’s World astatine One programme.

“What we bash cognize is that determination are galore radical - and survivors person said this to maine already - that were complicit [in Al Fayed’s abuse].

“They looked the different way. This could not person happened without radical knowing astir it, and helium utilized his presumption of powerfulness and influence.”

Police person antecedently said that they believed determination could beryllium arsenic galore arsenic 450 victims of Savile, a erstwhile TV presenter and DJ who was unmasked 1 of Britain’s astir notorious enactment offenders aft his death.

Dame Jasvinder said determination were astir 290 women engaged successful Harrods’ compensation strategy for employees who were abused by Al Fayed, and much than 70 person contacted the BBC to study intersexual maltreatment claims against the billionaire businessman.

The Justice for Harrods Survivors radical said past period the bulk of the inquiries they were dealing with were “in the Harrods context”, but said others had contacted them from Fulham FC, the Ritz edifice successful Paris and elsewhere.

Fayed acquired Harrods for £615 cardinal successful 1985. In 2010, aft 26 years successful charge, helium sold the section store to the Qatari royal household for a reported £1.5 billion.

Harrods said successful a erstwhile statement: “These were the actions of an idiosyncratic who was intent connected abusing his powerfulness wherever helium operated and we condemn them successful the strongest terms. We besides admit that during this clip arsenic a concern we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologise.

“The Harrods of contiguous is simply a precise antithetic organisation to the 1 owned and controlled by Al Fayed betwixt 1985 and 2010, it is 1 that seeks to enactment the payment of our employees astatine the bosom of everything we do.”