Three survivors of Mohamed al-Fayed’s alleged sexual assault and rape have opened up on a tradition of abuse, humiliation, and manipulation below the previous Harrods proprietor.
Lindsay Mason, 55, Gemma, 42, and Katherine, 51, had been all victims of sexual assault or tried rape whereas they labored below Fayed as younger girls.
Meeting immediately for the primary time since coming ahead with their experiences, the survivors swapped numbers and shared tales.
“Our healing will be done now together, everyone’s connected,” Lindsay instructed a pool of reporters after Friday’s press convention.
The authorized crew representing the ladies mentioned 37 folks have now come ahead referring to the case. 5 girls have mentioned they had been raped by Fayed.
After assembly their fellow survivors immediately, Katherine mentioned it was “really validating” to listen to the experiences of different girls who had gone by means of comparable issues.
“We’re all from the 80s to the mid-2000s, we never knew each other. But talking this morning, I mean, we were all shouting at the TV last night, ‘yes, that happened to me’,” she mentioned.
The girls revealed instances they had been made to “perform” for celebrities, had been tormented emotionally by Fayed, and had been compelled to struggle off his bodily advances.
Often the abuse occurred on Fayed’s yacht moored close to Monaco, the place he would deliver celebrities and anticipate the ladies to “entertain” his company.
Gemma recalled Fayed throwing a lobster at her as a result of she wasn’t speaking throughout a dinner on the yacht with Piers Morgan, Ashley Cole and Cheryl Tweedy – then Cheryl Cole.
No one mentioned something, Gemma mentioned, one thing which she considered as a theme: “People just carried on like nothing happened. That was a very common thing that I’d seen.
“I remember walking off the yacht in St Tropez, and he went, ‘carry my bag you f****** donkey’ in front of a full hoard of paparazzi… but then everyone carried on like nothing had happened.”
Humiliation was a part of Fayed’s recreation, Gemma mentioned. If she had not accepted his sexual advances, she would know {that a} tough afternoon of humiliation and anger lay forward – an expertise which each Lindsay and Katherine agreed with.
“He would threaten you all the time. He would say, if you’re not good with me, then you’re in trouble. You’d never tell exactly what trouble you would be, but you’d be in trouble,” Gemma added.
Gemma mentioned the safety “absolutely, 100 percent” knew what was occurring behind closed doorways, when Fayed was committing his alleged crimes.
“On one occasion, I went crying to them and said, ‘help, he’s been trying to get my room’.
“They passed me a cloth and some chopsticks, and said, if you roll the cloth and put the chopsticks under the door, that will jam the door enough that he can’t get in.”
Lindsay was 20 on the time she alleges Fayed started “grooming” her in 1989.
Within months she was taken to Paris, flying on a non-public jet with Fayed and celebrities Barry Humphreys, Sandra Scott and Jeff Banks.
At one level, Lindsay and one other younger lady had been despatched out to do some buying – earlier than being made to placed on a “fashion show” and parade what that they had purchased to Fayed and his company.
It was on that journey that Fayed allegedly tried to rape Lindsay, after that they had been out for dinner with the three celebrities.
Lindsay was summoned to the lounge by Fayed’s safety.
“I sat on the furthest point I could from him – we all tried to do that – and he got up to get a drink. But then he came and sat right down next to me, and within seconds, he just flipped.”
“It was a very sustained sexual assault, an attempted rape, and I managed to kick him off. Then I ran down the hallway, I barricaded myself in my bedroom with an armoire, and I slept on the floor with my back to that so that I would be able to feel if he tried to come in and finish the job.”
Lindsay does not remember being brought out of the room and believes she was drugged, before being falsely imprisoned in the management offices.
Security flanked her while she went to the toilet with a colleague, who told her to be quiet so she wasn’t heard by nearby cameras when Lindsay wanted to tell her about the attempted rape.
After being relocked in the room, Lindsay says she was “scared for her life”.
“I pretended that I had an upset stomach, banging on the door, and they let me out. And luckily, he had a very high profile person turning up and all the security was on that.
“So I just ran for my life.”
Katherine labored for Fayed in 2005 for simply three months, earlier than being fired the day her probation ended after she rejected his advances.
She was made to purchase a brand new swimsuit day-after-day for per week after Fayed instructed her that her chest was “distracting”, and was instructed to blow dry her hair as a result of he “didn’t like the fact she had curly hair”.
When Katherine slept in a single day within the House of Windsor with Fayed, she blocked her door with a chair. The subsequent day, he known as her into the workplace, and mentioned “you don’t f******* block a door in my house”.
The solely approach Fayed may have recognized she blocked the door is that if he tried to get in, she mentioned.
Back in London, Fayed tried to pressure himself onto Katherine, however she fought him off. Soon afterwards, she was fired.
The girls expressed the impression assembly all the opposite girls had on them.
“It’s you feel like, wow, you know, this is what happened to other people. People will now believe me”, Gemma mentioned
“For so many years, we’ve kept it secret for fear of people not believing us, not taking us seriously. And now all of a sudden, all these amazing women are coming forward, and they’ve got the same story.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mohamed-al-fayed-sexual-assault-survivors-b2616403.html