Like Jimmy Savile, Mohamed al Fayed was hiding in plain sight - Vladimir McTavish

Mohamed Al Fayed. Photo: Shaun Curry/AFP via Getty ImagesMohamed Al Fayed. Photo: Shaun Curry/AFP via Getty Images
Mohamed Al Fayed. Photo: Shaun Curry/AFP via Getty Images
Watching the BBC documentary about Mohamed al Fayed, it beggars belief that he was able to get away with being a serial sexual predator for decades without the authorities noticing.

Talk about hiding in plain sight. The ex-Harrods owner positively oozed sleaze. He was friends with Michael Jackson for goodness sake. When he bought Fulham FC, he even had a statue of Jacko erected outside the main stand at the club’s ground Craven Cottage.

Yet it took a BBC programme, produced after his death, to uncover the billionaire’s multiple sexual assaults, rapes, groping and forced medical examinations of female employees. It was alleged in the programme that Harrods had enabled this behaviour and colluded in covering up the allegation at the time

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While it is laudable to reveal al Fayed’s crimes, it’s a bit rich for the BBC to go around accusing other organisations of covering up the behaviour of serial sex pests. After all, Jimmy Savile was able to carry out much of his campaign of sexual terror right under their noses at Broadcasting House. And nobody did a thing about it.

With both al Fayed and Savile, their behaviour was common knowledge at the time. I had heard rumours about Jimmy Savile as long ago as the late seventies from a flatmate of mine who had been a porter at St James Hospital in Leeds. You only have to look at old repeats of Jim’ll Fix It for it to be blindingly obvious that the guy was a paedophile. He even had Gary Glitter as a guest on one show.

Complaints were made about both men over a decade ago, and it now seems incredulous that the Department of Public Prosecutions did not act on allegations about the behaviour of Savile and al Fayed at the time, claiming there was insufficient evidence. The director of the DPP I those days was a bloke called Keir Starmer. Perhaps he should have got a pair of glasses back then.

In an unrelated matter I see that Philip Schofield is to make a TV comeback. The disgraced former breakfast telly host will be presenting three hour-long shows featuring only himself on an isolated desert island. Filmed by himself, with nobody else involved. Furthermore, it will be broadcast on Channel 5 which means nobody will watch it either.

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