I was 18, Al Fayed was 75 when he groped me and pinned me to wall… it still makes me sick, says Harrods worker victim
A TEENAGE victim of sex predator Mohamed Fayed has revealed she still feels sick over being groped by the OAP tycoon before he flung wads of cash at her.
Danielle Motileb was just 18 when she was pushed against the wall by the 75-year-old fiend in his Harrods office — in what she now believes was an attempt to rape her.
She yesterday revealed the terrifying attack — in which Fayed said he wanted to be her boyfriend — was the culmination of a pattern of regular sexual abuse she suffered while working at the posh store.
Danielle, now a 41-year-old mum of two, joined Harrods in 2003 as a sales assistant.
At her home in Hemel Hempstead, Herts, she revealed to The Sun on Sunday about her harrowing experiences at the hands of the billionaire beast.
She said Fayed, who died last year aged 94, demanded she went to his lavish office every Friday afternoon where he would launch his perverse attacks on her, groping her breasts and sticking his tongue into her mouth.
Danielle said: “It makes me sick to think about what he did to me.
“I was recruited so that he could assault me. They only employed pretty young girls.
“His Friday afternoon routine was well known. He called us up to his office and he’d start off by saying we looked a bit scruffy.
“But we didn’t, we were all smart in the store.
“He’d then touch our uniform. He’d stroke on top of our shirts and then he’d squeeze our breasts.
“Then he’d get out a wad of cash, it would all be £50 notes, and he’d give it to us. I know it sounds awful but it was hard not to take it because he was so powerful.
“The fact he’d usually have a few of us there made it feel a bit safer or more normal, I guess?
“It is hard to think about now, it has been a long time and I had tried to move on but I feel lucky that I managed to escape.”
Danielle, who worked for a year at Harrods in Knightsbridge, West London, began to physically shake as she recalled the last time she was called to Fayed’s lair.
She said: “I remember it was one of the smaller rooms in his office.
“It was odd because usually I was with the other girls, but this time he had called down to ask the manager to send me alone.
“I said to my manager, ‘Is anyone else coming?’. But she said, ‘No, he wants to see you’. My blood ran cold. The office was dark. It was all old wooden polished furniture.
“He was about 75 and he was quite a small man. He stood there and the door was closed.
“Then he said, ‘I want to be your boyfriend’. I said, ‘No, I already have a boyfriend. I don’t want you to be my boyfriend’.
“He said he would take care of me and provide for me. But I said, ‘No I don’t want that’. He started to come towards me and he grabbed hold of me. I started to panic then and I felt very scared.
“He pushed me against the wall and he stuck his tongue right down my throat. It was disgusting.
“I shouted for him to get off me. And I ran out of there.
“Now I hear about what he did to the other women, I think he would have raped me that day.
“If I hadn’t been so vocal and pushed him away — it is scary.
“God knows what that would have done to me and my life. But after that, I never went back to the office. I just refused to go. Whenever the boss came down, he ignored me.
“We were all just disposable toys. He was the king and he did what he wanted. He was untouchable.”
Danielle also told how she had witnessed Fayed’s “favourite” girls being taken to a posh hotel nearby and given cars and handbags.
Asked why she had stayed silent until now, she explained: “I guess the same reason we all did, we were scared and he was powerful. No one believed us anyway.”
Her telling of her experiences comes as hundreds of women come forward.
Lawyers confirmed they have had more than 150 enquiries from potential victims since the BBC2 documentary Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods last week exposed him as a serial sex attacker.
On Friday, survivors’ lawyers said Fayed was a monster whose web of abuse was enabled by Harrods.
They warned his 25-year reign of terror towards staff could be “one of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation the world has ever seen”.
Now I hear about what he did to the other women, I think he would have raped me that day.
Danielle
Around 30 survivors packed into a press conference at Kent House, near the department store.
Lawyers said Fayed carried out rapes, sexual assaults and abuse of minors on a shocking scale.
Many women who came forward were angered by a favourable portrayal of the billionaire in Netflix’s The Crown.
His son Dodi dated Princess Diana before they both died in a Paris car smash in 1997.
It was said he could have carried out attacks at places including the Ritz hotel in Paris, which he bought in 1979, and Fulham FC, owned by him from 1997 to 2013.
The Egyptian tycoon took the honorific title “Al” when he came to the UK in the 1960s despite having no right to it.
Harrods, which he owned from 1985 to 2010, claimed it did not know of the abuse allegations until 2023 but barrister Dean Armstrong said this was “simply not true”.
He added: “We have investigated a vast web of abuse.
Vast web of abuse
“Mohammed Al-Fayed was a monster but he was a monster enabled by a system that pervaded Harrods. This case combines some of the most horrific elements of the cases involving Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein.
“Savile because in this case as in that, the institution, we say, knew about the behaviour.
“Epstein, because in that case as in this there was a procurement system in place to source women and girls — there are some very young victims in this — for abuse.
“And Weinstein because it was a person at the very top of the organisation abusing his power.
“Our aim is to seek justice for the survivors of the sexual abuse.
“Al-Fayed was enabled by an unsafe system of work which Harrods established, maintained, acquiesced to and facilitated during his chairmanship.
“The system not only enabled but potentially allowed the widespread sexual abuse of the survivors.” Lawyers said Fayed would send young victims for invasive medical checks with results fed back to him.
US attorney Gloria Allred, another member of the legal team. said:
“We’re looking for justice for the victims of Mohamed Al-Fayed.
“He’s not just a monster, he’s a sexual predator. He had a scheme, a plan, a design to recruit his targets that he wanted to sexually abuse.
“One was just shopping with their mother in Harrods when he saw her — 14 years old — and he went up to her, offered her employment at Harrods.
“He did what he did to many victims, to many he raped them or attempted to rape them.
Widespread abuse
Lindsay Mason, aged 20 when she was recruited to work at Harrods as a PA for Fayed, told The Sun how she fought him off in son Dodi’s luxury Paris apartment in 1989 when he tried to rape her.
Gemma, 42, was hired as Fayed’s senior PA when she was 24. She revealed he threw a lobster at her in front of pop star Cheryl Tweedy and footballer Ashley Cole — then a married couple — as she did not talk enough at dinner on his yacht.
And Katherine, now 51, who was hired to work as a senior PA in 2005, told how Fayed repeatedly ripped the buttons of her blouse before she was sacked at the end of her probation period after managing to struggle out of his attacks.
There are now calls for Harrods bosses to be questioned over any possible collusion. Store officials said they were “utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse” and that they were “the actions of an individual who was intent on abusing his power wherever he operated”.
Sources say Harrods has reached settlements with the vast majority of alleged victims who have approached the firm since 2023.
Damaged store might not recover
By Ashley Armstrong, Business Editor
HARRODS has survived world wars, two bomb attacks and a fire — but now its fortunes may be tarnished forever.
There are concerns wealthy shoppers may not want to be seen with its distinctive green and gold bags after the posh store admitted it failed to protect staff from predator Mohamed Fayed.
Retail consultant Mary Portas told The Sun: “The rumours were rife and he was a horror. I hope the store isn’t affected but those who surrounded and suppressed this are held to account.”
Harrods has a problem drawing a line under its former owner as echoes of Fayed remain literally all over the shop.
His garish Egyptian escalator, commissioned in 1997, still dominates the Knightsbridge department store from ground to fifth floor.
Ex-Fayed lieutenant Michael Ward has been managing director since 2005 — five years before his boss sold out for £1.5billion to the Qatari Royal Family.
Despite his sincere apology to staff, it might be understandable the Qataris would want a change of face.
Accounts this month revealed the Qataris handed themselves a £180million dividend last year, despite a 35 per cent fall in profits to £111.5million on the back of pensions changes.
In a sign of its attractiveness, sales rose by 8.2 per cent to £1billion in the past year, while other luxury stores such as Harvey Nichols struggled.