At least five Mohamed al-Fayed survivors confirmed as human trafficking victims

At least five survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed are victims of human trafficking, the Home Office has confirmed.

The survivors, whose experiences include both international and domestic trafficking, have received conclusive grounds decisions from the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the UK’s official framework for identifying victims of modern slavery, including human trafficking, forced labour and servitude.

Once a potential victim is referred to the NRM, the Single Competent Authority (SCA), which is part of the Home Office, processes the referral and decides on whether to officially recognise the individual as a modern slavery victim.

On 29 April 2026, it was reported by the BBC that one victim had received a positive conclusive grounds decision, after reporting abuse suffered at the hands of Mohamed al-Fayed and his brother, Salah.

Since then, all four members of an advocacy group for Fayed survivors called No One Above have also received conclusive grounds decisions that they are victims of modern slavery: Justine, Elizabeth, Margo and Isabella, all pseudonyms.

While these four have been confirmed by the Press Association (PA), it is understood that there are more survivors who have also received positive conclusive grounds decisions.

Their cases date back as early as the Nineties, while the most recent incidents took place after the 2010 sale of Harrods.

One survivor told PA they were recruited to a false role within Harrods, while two were hired for a legitimate role and then selected for abuse off the shop floor.

Another survivor was employed as a domestic worker for Al Fayed after being recruited via a letting agency called Hyde Park Residence.

All five survivors were referred to the NRM by the charity Unseen UK.

This reporting framework allows victims to receive appropriate support and provides the government with vital data about modern slavery in the UK.

Justine worked at Harrods for more than three years in the Nineties, and was trafficked and abused during this time.

She told PA she felt “shell-shocked” when she received the conclusive grounds decision in June that she had been a victim of modern slavery.

Justine said: “It’s not something I realised was happening to me at the time, so it’s all part of this journey that we’re on now in reliving this experience, and actually really understanding what happened to us, which is very difficult.”

She added: “But it’s a really significant thing, getting that decision, seeing it in writing that you were a victim of modern slavery and trafficking is very… it’s really shocking to read.”

Justine told PA that this is “concrete confirmation” from the Home Office that Fayed survivors were victims of human trafficking and that the scope of experiences was wide: from domestic to international trafficking, from those who worked at Harrods to those not involved with Harrods at all.

She said this is “very significant”, because Harrods’ position has been that the abuse was just the actions of “one bad man”, and that there is nothing they can do now he is dead.

Justine said: “These decisions illustrate that that is not the case at all.”

Elizabeth was also a Harrods employee and received a conclusive grounds decision that she was a victim of modern slavery in May.

She told PA that all the survivors in the Fayed case are victims of human trafficking, because it was all one system that recruited, exploited and silenced victims.

She said: “Everybody connected with this case is a trafficking victim, because it was all one system. You can’t say that victim A wasn’t trafficked and victim B was. I think there’s this persistent misunderstanding, possibly within the Metropolitan Police themselves, which is scary, that trafficking only involves being moved across international borders.

“There have been positive conclusive grounds trafficking decisions in cases where the trafficking occurred within the Harrods building.”

Margo was a domestic worker for Al Fayed after the sale of Harrods, and was recruited via a letting agency called Hyde Park Residence.

She received a positive conclusive grounds decision that she was a victim of human trafficking in July.

Margo told PA that she had not felt like a victim of trafficking “because really I didn’t know what trafficking was, especially domestic trafficking”.

She said Fayed’s trafficking network went “so beyond Harrods”.

“This was Balnagown [a Scottish property], it was Saint-Tropez, it was Fayair [a private jet company], it was Fulham Football Club, it was Hyde Park Residence.

“Everywhere he went he had enablers, and everywhere he went he had the capacity to abuse. All of his residences, all of his businesses,” she added.

Margo said she did not originally come forward because she did not work at Harrods.

She said: “There has just been so much emphasis put on Harrods to the point where I believe that there are so many more victims that haven’t come forward because they believe that it’s solely a Harrods issue.

“I know of one other Hyde Park Residence victim, but there has to be hundreds more somewhere.”

Isabella worked in the chairman’s office at Harrods in 2001. She received her conclusive grounds decision that she was a victim of trafficking in May.

She told PA: “I think one thing that the public doesn’t understand is they think this was one bad man, but he couldn’t have done what he did without Harrods processing women to him and silencing them afterwards.

“And it wasn’t just Harrods, obviously. It was any entity that Al Fayed owned or had control of.

“It was his yachts, his aviation business, the Ritz Paris, his properties all over France and Monaco, it went as far as the States and the UAE – anywhere that man touched.”

It was not just Mohamed Fayed either, she said, but “a wider network of perpetrators”.

Isabella added: “We are not aware of any negative decisions in this case, and there have now been many self-initiated referrals through Unseen.”

More than 400 allegations of sexual misconduct have been made against Fayed, dating between 1977 and 2014, including sexual assault, rape, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

The Met Police are investigating at least 156 victims who contacted them directly, including 21 who came forward before Fayed died in 2023 at the age of 94.

The investigation, known as Operation Cornpoppy, is looking at people who may have facilitated or enabled Fayed’s crimes. Four people have been questioned to date, 19 months after the investigation opened.

The Home Office has been approached for comment.