Ex-Harrods boss Mohamed al-Fayed ‘paid out £60,000 to a woman who accused him of sexual harassment’
The billionaire, 89, is believed to have paid the ex-employee after sacking her because she kept turning down his advances
BILLIONAIRE former Harrods boss Mohamed al-Fayed paid a woman £60,000 after she accused him of sexual harassment, it was alleged yesterday.
The payout came after he was said to have sacked her because she kept refusing his advances.
She said he told her: "If you sleep with me you can have everything. You can have a flat in the Kings Road, a car, a better job.
But she added: "I said no. I think he gave me a time limit of a few weeks and if I didn't change my mind I would be sacked." She sued for sexual harassment, bullying and sex discrimination and added: "They came back quite quickly with an offer - it was £60,000."
The former Fulham owner also faced a police probe after he targeted a girl aged just 15, it was claimed.
He offered her a weekend job at his store when he spotted her during a shopping trip with her mother around a decade ago.
She said she felt "honoured" when he invited her to attend meetings in his offices at Harrods and showered her with gifts of cash, perfume and designer handbags.
But she claimed that one day he "grabbed me to say hello...and carried on hugging me and then started rubbing himself on my chest and I was just shocked by the situation.
"I said 'what are you doing?' He said I was turning into a beautiful woman and then grabbed my head and tried to put his tongue in my mouth.
"So I pushed him off me. He went berserk, screaming at me to get the f*** out." She later confided in her parents who went to the police. But after an investigation the Crown Prosecution Service decided the evidence was conflicting and not reliable and the case was dropped.
The claims were made on Channel 4 news which branded the tycoon a "sexual predator". They came after a Dispatches documentary last December containing similar allegations.
Then three women alleged Mr Fayed groomed them and made inappropriate sexual advances during their time at Harrods.
Two were anonymous but a third, Cheska Hill-Wood, 41, an art gallery manager and a trained actress, went public.
On one occasion, when she was 17, she claimed the tycoon asked her to change into a swimming costume before filming her and trying to kiss her.
She also alleged he promised to find her work as an actress if she slept with him. She said she then dressed and fled.
The two other women said he repeatedly kissed them on the lips and gave them cash and offered them flats, cars and promotion.
The programme accused him of using his power at the department store in Knightsbridge, west London, to target young employees over a 13-year period.
Mr Fayed, 89, sued Vanity Fair after it reported a series of allegations in 1995 including sexual harassment and an obsession with personal hygiene.
The case was later withdrawn, with each side reportedly agreeing to pay its own legal costs, estimated to total £1.6million.
Channel 4 News said around a dozen former staff had come forward to say they had been groomed and sexually harassed by Mr al-Fayed.
His lawyer told the programme that the claims in relation to the 15-year-old were "false" and he was unable to comment on the other allegations.
Mr Fayed waged a high profile campaign against the Royal Family after the death of his only son Dodi Fayed, and Diana, Princess of Wales in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
MOST READ IN NEWS
He blamed the Duke of Edinburgh for their deaths despite police saying there was no evidence to suggest the couple had been murdered.
The tycoon, who still owns the Ritz Hotel in Paris, sold Harrods for £1.5billion in 2010.