Mohamed Al Fayed’s son claims father faked dementia to avoid prosecution
Omar Fayed claims former Harrods Owner tricked police to escape justice over rape and sexual assault allegations
Mohamed Al Fayed pretended he had dementia so he could evade prosecution for sexual crimes, his son has said.
Police now believe Fayed may have raped and abused at least 111 women and girls over nearly four decades.
His youngest son, Omar Fayed, 37, compared his father to a Nazi war criminal in an interview with the Mail on Sunday and said that others got his father “off the hook on the grounds he was mentally incapacitated”. He added that “afterwards it was back to business – he was as sharp as a tack”.
Omar Fayed, a tech entrepreneur who was once due to inherit Harrods, said he wished the “investigation had been able to take its course when he was still alive”. Fayed died last year at the age of 94.
Omar Fayed added: “If a Nazi general is found to have been hiding in the Algarve for the last 50 years, then of course he should be tried.”
His comments suggest that police missed an opportunity to bring charges when allegations surfaced in 2017 and 2018, when his father was in his late 80s.
One woman who made a statement to the police in 2018 about sexual abuse by the former Harrods owner was told that he was too old to be prosecuted and that he was not in the right state of mind because of dementia.
A year earlier Fayed had been the subject of a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary that accused him of sexually harassing young employees, including a 17-year-old he had recruited. An unsuccessful attempt to prevent broadcast was made on the grounds that Fayed was mentally incapacitated.
Cheska Hill-Wood told the documentary that she was sexually assaulted by Fayed in 1993, when she was a 17-year-old aspiring actor, after he approached her to become a personal assistant.
Hill-Wood said he had asked her to change into a swimming costume before filming her, with the excuse that his film producer son, Dodi, might be able to help with her acting career. She said Fayed kissed her and that when she pushed him away, he said: “If you don’t sleep with me, I can’t help you.”
Hill-Wood told the Mail on Sunday: “Hearing that he faked illness to escape justice is appalling, but totally consistent with the behaviour of this despicable individual who believed he could act with impunity. It is deeply sad for the sake of so many women that he didn’t face justice when alive.”
Commenting on Fayed’s failed attempts to prevent the broadcast of the documentary in 2017, she said: “The legal letter said he had dementia and that we should consider his grandchildren as they’re at school. But I remember thinking at the time that I wasn’t long out of school myself when he did what he did to me.”
The Guardian reported claims that corrupt police officers helped Fayed persecute members of his staff, including a young woman who allegedly rebuffed his sexual advances.
Fayed was arrested in 2013 over a rape allegation, but never charged.
The Metropolitan police would not comment on Omar Fayed’s suggestion that his father had tricked them into believing he had dementia.
Reissuing an earlier statement made on the announcement of a new investigation into those who might have facilitated Fayed’s offending, the Met said: “No criminal charges were brought against Al Fayed while he was alive and we recognise the impact this has had on many victims.
“From the review so far, it is apparent that past investigations were extensive and conducted by specialist teams who sought charging decisions from the CPS on two occasions. However, we know that contact with and support for some victims at the time could have been improved. Only after completing this comprehensive review will we fully understand what could have been done differently.”
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