Al Fayed abuse survivor says compensation scheme is ‘an insult’ and ‘a disgrace’

A survivor of abuse by former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed has said the compensation scheme offered by the department store company was “an insult”, “a disgrace” and “not taking survivors seriously”.Harrods set up a redress scheme to offer compensation to survivors which was open from March 31 2025 to the same date this year.A Companies House document of the department store’s full accounts made up to January 31 this year, published last month, showed it paid £4.1 million in compensation up to the end of January and set aside £51.8 million for future compensation claims from then.On Monday, KP Law, which represents more than 275 survivors, said the “true value” of its clients’ compensation claims was likely double or triple the amount Harrods set aside and could total as much as £150 million.Cheska Hill-Wood told the Press Association she was abused “almost immediately” when she started working at Harrods aged 19 in 1993.She said: “I worked for Harrods for a very short period of time, and the abuse started, the grooming shall we say, it initially started probably on the first day.Read More“This was 1993, I had just turned 19 when I started the job, and the abuse started almost immediately.“I know that a lot of women who worked there for a longer period of time were abused equally as quickly and repeatedly.“They couldn’t escape. I escaped. I’m one of the luckier ones, but many didn’t.”Ms Hill-Wood added: “The redress scheme that Harrods had was open for one year. They gave survivors a time limit.“Now, many of us have been campaigning and shouting for, as I say, nearly 40 years, and a redress scheme is slapped at us with one year.“It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.“Plus, what they were offering was not taking survivors seriously.“It was an insult, and I feel, I still think, it’s disgusting.”About 30 survivors and supporters gathered outside Harrods in central London on Friday to mark the eve of the second anniversary of the BBC documentary which brought the abuse scandal into public view.They were joined by Dave Robertson MP and Wendy Chamberlain MP – co-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Survivors of Fayed and Harrods.Some survivors at the gathering, which was organised by the Justice for Fayed and Harrods Survivors campaign, were carrying Harrods bags with the store’s famous green logo crossed.“Many of us here today, in fact, probably all of us here today, did not sign up for that redress scheme,” Ms Hill-Wood added.Jen Mills, survivor co-chair of Justice for Fayed and Harrods Survivors, told PA that the department store company was “going to need much deeper pockets”.Ms Mills said she joined Harrods as a management trainee aged 16 and was “very quickly” introduced to Al Fayed, who asked her to become one of his personal assistants.Cheska Hill-Wood joins other survivors of abuse at the hands of Mohamed Al Fayed at the protest (Ben Whitley/PA)PA WireShe said: “I worked for him for five years and was abused by him for five years, and felt that I couldn’t escape.“There were many threats made against us. He told us that if we left him, we would never work in London again, and also that we would never be worthy of a job anywhere else, so it became incredibly difficult to leave.“But eventually, after five years, I did escape and hadn’t really spoken about that experience openly until two years ago when the BBC documentary aired.”Ms Mills said: “We’ve always known that the amount that Harrods budgeted for this was never ever going to be enough.”She added: “So, hopefully, KP Law now releasing the much higher figure of somewhere between £100 and £150 million is much more realistic.“And yet again, here we are in a situation where Harrods have made their decision on what they were prepared to budget for this without ever hearing any of the evidence from any of the women.“But, clearly, Harrods are going to need much deeper pockets.”When Harrods’ redress scheme was still open, a spokesperson for the company said it “supports the bravery of all survivors in coming forward”.They encouraged women to continue making claims to the scheme and added: “We also encourage survivors to look at every avenue open to them in their pursuit of justice, whether that be the police or the Fayed family and estate.”Mr Robertson, MP for Lichfield, told PA: “One of the things that’s really important to understand when you’re talking about this scandal is the scale of the abuse.”He added: “There’s very clearly a lot of things that went wrong and this is not the actions of one person.”More than 400 allegations of sexual misconduct have been made against Al Fayed and other perpetrators linked to him, dating between 1977 and 2014, including sexual assault, rape, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.The Metropolitan Police is dealing with at least 159 victims who contacted them directly, including 21 who came forward before Al Fayed’s death in 2023 at the age of 94.The investigation, known as Operation Cornpoppy, was launched in November 2024 and is looking at people who may have facilitated or enabled Al Fayed’s crimes.Harrods was contacted for comment.