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Harrods was accused of a “systematic failure of corporate responsibility” by a lawyer representing alleged victims of Mohamed Al Fayed, following a slew of claims of sexual assault against the late former owner of the London department store, including rape.

Dean Armstrong KC, representing some of the alleged victims, said in a press conference in London on Friday: “This is and was a systematic failure of corporate responsibility and that systematic failure is on the shoulders of Harrods.

“We are not going to get into a situation where there is any room for anyone to seek to avoid responsibility,” he added, “so we pursue Harrods and we focus on Harrods at this stage because of the collective responsibility.”

His comments came after the BBC broadcast the allegations against Al Fayed in a documentary and podcast about the businessman, who died last year aged 94. His son Dodi was killed alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

More than 20 women alleged to the BBC that they had been sexually assaulted by the billionaire, with five alleging they had been raped. The women, who worked at Harrods from the late 1980s to the 2000s, said the alleged assaults were carried out at the company’s offices, in Al Fayed’s London apartment or on trips abroad. In the exposé, the BBC claimed that Harrods failed to intervene and also helped cover up allegations against Al Fayed.

Al Fayed owned and controlled Harrods between 1985 and 2010, when he sold it to a Qatari sovereign wealth fund for a reported £1.5bn.

Armstrong, who is part of the legal team retained by a number of alleged victims alongside US lawyer and women’s advocate Gloria Allred and barrister Maria Mulla, added that any prospective legal proceedings were not about financial compensation but about “much, much more”. 

“If Harrods feel that they ought to compensate women financially for what they’ve done and how they failed them, then, of course, that is something which we would welcome. But we are not going to sit here and accept any suggestion that we are only interested in money,” he said.

On Thursday law firm Leigh Day, which is representing an individual alleged to have been subjected to trafficking, rape and abuse by Al Fayed, said it was also looking at possible claims, including against Harrods. The firm is working with US law firm Motley Rice. Harrods said it would not comment on individual claims.

The retailer said on Friday it had accepted “vicarious liability for the conduct of Al Fayed” in order to settle claims that had been brought to Harrods’ attention since 2023, adding it “has reached settlements with the vast majority of people” who approached it.

Harrods declined to comment on the amount paid to women who alleged sexual misconduct, and said no claims were outstanding at the time of the documentary airing.

“Harrods has received new enquiries since the broadcast which we will deal with swiftly and carefully,” the company added, saying “there were no [non-disclosure agreements] attached to these settlements” and it would not seek to enforce “any NDAs that relate to alleged sexual abuse by Al Fayed that were entered into during the period of his ownership”. 

In a statement on its website in response to the documentary, which aired on Thursday, the group said it was “utterly appalled” by the allegations. The company added that “during this time his victims were failed and for this we sincerely apologise”.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”

Harrods said it was “a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010”.

Meanwhile, London football club Fulham FC, owned by Al Fayed from 1997 until 2013, said it had been deeply troubled and concerned by the reports in the documentary.

“We have sincere empathy for the women who have shared their experiences,” the club said. “We are in the process of establishing whether anyone at the club is, or has been, affected.”

Mulla was quoted by the BBC as saying the legal team were not representing any women in connection with Fulham. “But our investigations are obviously ongoing into all these entities that he had an involvement in.”

Travis King, the US soldier who fled from South to North Korea last year before being returned home, has been sentenced to one year of confinement on charges including desertion and assault of a non-commissioned officer.

But with time already served and credit for good behaviour, the 24-year-old Army private walked free, his legal team told the BBC.

At Friday’s hearing at Fort Bliss, Texas, he pleaded guilty to five of the original 14 military charges that had been filed against him. The other charges were dismissed.

He was questioned by the military judge about his decision to flee across the border into North Korea in July 2023. King joined the army in January 2021 and was in South Korea as part of a unit rotation when he crossed into North Korea.

At his hearing on Friday, King told military judge Lt Col Rick Mathew that he had decided to flee the US Army because he was “dissatisfied” with work and had been thinking about leaving for about a year before he bolted into North Korea.

“I wanted to desert from the US Army and never come back,” King said, according to reporters inside the courtroom.

He also said he had been diagnosed with mental health conditions, though he maintained he was fit to stand trial and understood the charges.

King illegally crossed into North Korea while on a civilian tour of the village of Panmunjom, located on the heavily guarded Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.

BRITISH commandos are on standby ready to airlift civilians from Lebanon if ratcheting tensions between Israel and Hezbollah escalate to full-blown war.

The military has been placed on high alert to launch an emergency evacuation with two ships also on standby in the region.

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A defence source told The Telegraph the British government “stands prepared” to pull Brits to safety if the situation explodes.

Foreign secretary David Lammy outlined the preparations in an emergency Cobra meeting.

He yesterday warned Brits living in Lebanon to leave immediately while “commercial options remain”.

Officials are also planning to rent aircraft which could be used to carry out the emergency plans.

The Foreign Office has advised against all travel to the country since October last year – when war between Hamas and Israel exploded in Gaza.

In the year since, conflict between Israel and Hezbollah – Hamas’ Iran-backed ally in Lebanon – has spiralled, culminating in massive airstrikes and unprecedented deadly cyber attacks this week.

Now the Israeli military is poised to invade Lebanon – with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing for all-out war.

Some British nationals in Lebanon have decided to remain there – including an unnamed charity worker who said he felt he could not abandon his colleagues.

He said: “I felt it would somehow be wrong to cut and run at the first moment when things go wrong.”

Several international airlines including Delta, AirFrance and Lufthansa have axed flights to Beirut amid the chaos.

Israel launched a double-tap hack in Lebanon, detonating Hezbollah pagers, walkie-talkies and other electronic devices earlier this week.

Some 37 people were killed and 3,600 injured in the fatal explosions, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

On Thursday the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) unleashed airstrikes over Lebanon itself, before Hezbollah launched at least 140 rockets back in a revenge strike on Friday.

The IDF responded with more strikes on Beirut, killing at least nine and wounding 60 more – and taking out Hezbollah second-in-command Ibrahim Aqil in the process.

Some 10 other senior chiefs from the terror group were killed alongside Aqil, Israel said.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across the border almost daily in parallel with the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah has reportedly killed 26 civilians and 20 soldiers and forced another 80,000 Israelis to head south to escape the blitz.

Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to return the evacuated Israelis “securely to their homes”.

The UN has previously said over 90,000 people in Lebanon have been forced from their homes, with some 100 civilians killed by Israeli strikes.

The US, UK, UN and other Western country have urged calm and restraint from all parties amid fears of an all-out war.

Hezbollah, an ally of terror group Hamas, has said it is attacking Israel in support of them and won’t stop until the war in Gaza ends.

Israel has vowed to continue fighting in the Strip until Hamas is destroyed and its hostages are returned home.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The Foreign Secretary has chaired a meeting of Cobra this morning on the latest situation in Lebanon and to discuss ongoing preparedness work, with the risk of escalation remaining high.

“The safety of British nationals is our number one priority which is why we’re continuing to advise people to leave Lebanon now while commercial routes remain available.”

The US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Jordan, and Turkey have also warned their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible.

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