Introduction

This is “What Just Happened?,” the podcast that looks at the biggest brand crises of our time, what they meant for organisational strategy and behaviour, and their lasting impact on our approach to crisis communication.

I’m Kate Hartley. And I’m Tamara Littleton. And together, we’ll delve into what happened, why it mattered, and whether it could happen again.

Episode

Kate Hartley: So today we’re talking about Harrods and the implication of the huge numbers of sexual assault and abuse claims that have come to light against its former owner and Chairman, Mohammed Al Fayed.

Tamara Littleton: This is really horrifying, and we’re going to focus more on the impact on the brand, rather than the claims themselves. But it is worth recapping what happened so that we can understand the context here absolutely.

KH: And this is a case that goes back really to 1985, when Mohammed Al Fayed, who was a wealthy Egyptian businessman, as we know, and of course, the father of Dodi Fayed, bought Harrods, the luxury department store in Knightsbridge in London. He owned the store until 2010, when he sold it for a reported £1.5 billion to the investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. The reason that this is, I suppose, relevant now, is that in 2024 a BBC documentary exposed decades of serious sexual abuse of women working at Harrods by Al Fayed, including sexual assault and rape. These cases go back to 1986 and they continue right the way through until he sold the store in 2010.

TL: And sadly, this isn’t something that only just came to light, is it? There were reports of this behaviour well before last year.

KH: Yeah, awful though, there were repeated allegations made against him, but it’s really since his death in 2023—he died aged 94—that those survivors felt safe to come forward. Although there were a few really brave people who did do that before this BBC documentary was made last year, and there were a few journalists who investigated Al Fayed over the years, nothing really came to much for the women who’d been abused by him. So I’ll just go through some of the key things that happened, particularly with the media trying to expose what had happened.

In September 1995, Vanity Fair ran a big exposé on Al Fayed, all about his business dealings and his political influence, or at least his ambitions of political influence. In that report, there’s an almost casual reference to the number of women that he’d abused. Al Fayed sued Vanity Fair, and the then editor, a guy called Henry Porter, talked about the pressure that was put on witnesses, including threats to young women saying they’d never work again. That case never really reached any kind of settlement until 1997, which of course was the year that Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed, Mohammed’s son, died in that terrible accident in Paris.

At that point, the magazine and Al Fayed both agreed to shut down the case. I think Porter said it just didn’t seem important at that time, with everything else that was going on. There’s also the case of the then editor of News of the World, who reported that he’d spoken to an 18-year-old who’d been abused, but she also wouldn’t speak out. She was terrified of the repercussions, and Al Fayed’s power was just too great. So these women couldn’t really speak out, and therefore the papers couldn’t do anything.

There were reports to the police as well. One survivor, who was 15 at the time, went to the police in 2008 to report an assault. There were some headlines, but no charges were brought. There was a Dispatches programme by Channel 4 that featured women who were making all sorts of allegations against Al Fayed, and that was cancelled in 2010. Then something similar happened in 2015. The Mirror published an article about a report of rape that was made in 2013, and the police said they’d look at the case, but again, no charges were brought.

Then there was a Dispatches programme in 2017, and that kind of changed things. That was after the MeToo movement—lots of things had changed, of course, to let people be far more heard when they came forward with these things. But again, many people didn’t feel able to come forward. So that programme kind of sank without really making much of an impression at the time. However, it did encourage other people to come forward later. Some survivors came forward in 2018 and there was consideration of a case, but Mohammed Al Fayed at that point was considered too old and infirm for it to go to court.

TL: I remember that programme. It was called Behind Closed Doors, wasn’t it?

KH: Yeah, exactly. And Kate, it’s a story about power, isn’t it? He was just too powerful for people to come forward and for any of the allegations to stick. I can only presume that you have a whole system around you to protect you when you’re in that kind of position of power.

TL: Absolutely.

KH: And even the way that witnesses were called forward shows just how powerful he was. In one investigation, one of the women who was reporting abuse was asked whether she believed he could behave like this. She had also been assaulted by Al Fayed, so she knew from personal experience that he could behave like that. But she was accompanied to that interview by Harrods’ lawyer so that she wouldn’t say anything inappropriate. So, of course, she was too frightened to say anything but “Oh no, I don’t think he could do that.”

TL: Of course, if the system is against you, you can’t go to HR because that’s part of the problem. You can’t get your own legal representation. That goes way beyond one man acting alone.

KH: Absolutely. And it gets worse even. One survivor had secretly recorded Al Fayed when he came to her room and she contacted a lawyer with the transcripts of those tapes. Her lawyer sent Harrods’ lawyers those transcripts. She was advised to settle, and in that agreement, she was pushed into agreeing to shred all the evidence and then be given a sum of money.

That means Harrods’ lawyers had seen that evidence, so they knew it was real. They sent her a shredding truck, and they sent an HR person to be present while all her evidence was shredded. But, of course, she had a copy of the email which included the transcript, so she was able to then produce them later as evidence, thank goodness. But she was effectively silenced at the time because of his power. And of course, they were all made to sign non-disclosure agreements, or what we now know as NDAs.

TL: And I mean, it is quite common to sign an NDA in settlement. But surely, if this is a criminal offence, that is a different story. So senior people at Harrods knew what they were doing, which implicated Harrods more widely in this abuse.

KH: Yeah, and that point was made by one of the lawyers—that the NDA in this case should really be questioned. And as you say, it shows that people all the way through the business knew. The BBC documentary in 2024 really exposes that.

There are lots of shocking things, but one of the things that really shocked me was that Al Fayed’s personal assistants were all sent for medical checks when they joined. That included a sexual health check, and those results were sent directly to Al Fayed. That implicates the HR people that set them up, and also the doctors doing the health checks.

One of the managers says on that documentary that everybody knew. Al Fayed’s personal security guards say that people knew. One of the security guards said he noticed that Al Fayed would get the manager to line up young women working there as if it was some kind of parade. Security would see women going into his apartments, and one person even questioned it, but he was told if he questioned it, he’d be fired.

There was one security guard on the BBC documentary who was obviously really upset later on, but said he’d been told by one of the young women that Al Fayed was abusive. He didn’t feel he had the power to do anything. He even said that the police might not have been able to do anything. Al Fayed was, at the time, one of the most powerful men in the country, and effectively, that’s what protected him.

TL: And he presided over a culture of fear. He really did.

KH: Everyone talks about the culture of fear. Everywhere he went, he had security guards with him. There was this kind of big show of power. There were multiple reports of cameras being everywhere, hidden, and that stopped people talking to each other, for example.

TL: Of course, this wasn’t limited to just Harrods. You know, he owned other places around the world, including the Paris Ritz, didn’t he?

KH: He did, and his behaviour was replicated there. And his private houses, which included Villa Windsor, which was the house in Bois de Boulogne that King Edward and Mrs Simpson lived in.

TL: And that’s the one that you see in The Crown, isn’t it? I know a lot of the women that Al Fayed had abused have really objected to his portrayal in The Crown, and understandably hated seeing a replica of the house where they were abused. That must have just been so distressing.

KH: Yeah, and there’s one very telling moment in that BBC documentary where one of the women he abused says she went to Paris on business, and she says she didn’t ask where she was staying, because, in her words, “Of course Harrods would book us a hotel room and make sure of our safety, not deliver us like lambs to the slaughter.” Well, it was Al Fayed’s house, and she was staying at his house. She managed to fight him off when he tried to assault her, but she says that one week later, Harrods said her contract had been terminated because she didn’t use the right staff door.

TL: And you mentioned duty of care. Let’s talk a bit more about that duty of care that Harrods has.

KH: Yeah, so Bruce Drummond is a barrister who’s acting on behalf of some of the survivors, bringing a case against Harrods. He says any place of work has a duty to ensure the safety of its employees, and I think that’s really at the heart of this, isn’t it? Harrods failed to keep those young women safe, and they may have known and chosen not to act. One survivor makes this point very clearly in the film—that he got away with it because people engineered everything on his behalf.

From the senior PA setting up medical appointments, to the doctor who did the medical, to the security people who kept quiet, to the HR person who witnessed the destruction of the evidence, and of course the legal teams who settled—that’s a whole system. Dean Armstrong, who’s one of the lawyers representing these women, said, “We will say it plainly: Mohammed Al Fayed was a monster, but he was a monster enabled by a system—a system that pervaded Harrods.” He went on to say that Fayed was enabled by unsafe systems of work, which Harrods established, maintained, certainly acquiesced to, and, we say, facilitated.

TL: And that’s really what we’re looking at here, isn’t it? How the actions of one man actually aren’t just one person at all—they’re the actions of an entire system. How has Harrods responded to that?

KH: So Harrods gave a statement to the BBC, and I think it’s worth reading that out. That statement said: “We are utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohammed Al Fayed. These were the actions of an individual who was intent on abusing his power wherever he operated, and we condemn them in the strongest terms. We also acknowledge that during this time, as a business, we failed our employees who were victims, and for this, we sincerely apologise.”

Now, that’s significant. I think they’re saying it’s the actions of an individual, but they are also acknowledging that they failed the employees. That statement goes on to say: “The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010. It is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.” Since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been their priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible.

The statement continues: “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.” It is worth saying that Harrods started settling those claims in 2023 before the BBC documentary.

TL: What about the police role here, though?

KH: So the police—the Met Police—confirmed in a statement to the BBC, again ahead of that documentary, that it received an allegation of sexual assault in 2008, which was thoroughly investigated and referred to the CPS. But the CPS concluded no further action should be taken. The Met have voluntarily referred themselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct after two women complained about the quality of the investigation in 2008.

By November 2024, it said it was looking into 19 active allegations of sexual assault, rape and abuse against Al Fayed.

TL: And of course, more people will be able to come forward too.

KH: They will. The Guardian says that police think there might be 111 women and girls who were abused over four decades. Sky News reports that 290 women have applied to the Harrods compensation scheme. As a result of those new police inquiries, of course, there’s an investigation into a number of people associated with Al Fayed who may have facilitated or enabled him offending, and whether they had the opportunity to prevent that abuse.

So those are people around him in that system that we were talking about. I think that’s the core of it, isn’t it? There was an army of people who could have had the opportunity to prevent that abuse, and many of them worked for Harrods.

TL: Did the Qatari investment company know about this when they bought Harrods?

KH: So that’s a huge question. There’s a piece on the BBC website that claims the buyer didn’t do its due diligence. There are a couple of things here, I think. The first is, this was 2010, and a lot’s changed in 15 years in terms of attitude.

This was before the MeToo movement. Things were seen very differently. So potentially, if they did know about it, they might have underestimated its impact. They might have seen it as a calculated risk. We’ll probably never know that, to be honest, but I will say that they must have known before they started settling the cases in 2023. All it would take is a Google search to see that these cases came up, so they must have known something.

The cynic in me says, why are they only now horrified? Why were they not horrified in 2017, for example, when that Dispatches piece came out?

TL: With everything we’ve discussed, we have to delve into the brand. What’s the impact been on the brand and how it’s perceived?

KH: There’s a YouGov BrandIndex poll that shows how the public perception of Harrods has fallen since that BBC documentary came out, despite the change of ownership in 2010. They measure a couple of things, and they track whether people have heard anything positive or negative about the brand. Fairly obviously, given the documentary and all the news coverage, the number of people who’d heard negative things has massively increased. So that’s not a huge surprise, but I think the other numbers are a bit more interesting.

They look at whether people think positively or negatively about Harrods generally, and that’s really shifted. Harrods used to be a very well-respected brand, but it’s now one that the public really doesn’t seem to like. So that’s quite interesting. There are a couple of other scores too. There’s a reputation tracker, which tracks whether people would be proud or embarrassed to work for a brand, and that’s dropped for Harrods by 22 points into a negative score.

They also have a recommend score, which is fairly obviously whether you’d recommend that brand, and that’s also dropped by 13 points into a negative score. So it’s had a real impact so far on reputation.

TL: Wow. And what about sales?

KH: Well, that’s a bit different. We don’t know yet what the sales impact is really, but if you look at sales in 2023, they’re actually up. Now, remember that Harrods was starting to settle those cases in 2023, so this was kind of public knowledge, but it wasn’t quite in the same public consciousness as it is after that BBC documentary.

Sales were up in 2023, which was reported in February last year. February 2024 sales were around £1 billion in the year to February 2024, but profits were down. Harrods has already said that 2024 figures might be down on the year before, and they’re saying that’s largely because the luxury market is in a difficult position at the moment. So even if sales are down, it’s going to be quite difficult to unpick what might have caused that—whether it’s going to be this, or the general market.

But we do know that compensation for the survivors is likely to be in the millions, and Harrods has accepted what’s known as vicarious liability for the claims. That means it’s accepting responsibility for Al Fayed’s actions, basically. So it could be liable for failing to provide a safe working environment, for example.

There are other implications as well on the impact. This is, I think, really interesting. The British Red Cross, which used to be one of Harrods’ community partners, has cut ties with the store because of the claims, saying it doesn’t fit its values. Now that’s a really big thing to do.

Just to give you some context, after Grenfell, Harrods donated £1 million to the Red Cross’ London Fire Relief and it used to donate surplus stock to be sold in Red Cross charity shops. So that’s a really big call not to accept donations from them.

TL: Definitely. And I think the thing here is that Harrods will really be under scrutiny to make sure this never happens again. So I guess the real test will be how these claims are handled, has the culture changed, and any employee allegations will be looked at in real detail and in the context of the abuse under Al Fayed’s leadership. That’s exactly what we’re going to look at with our guest—which is, how do you create a culture of psychological safety so that this kind of thing never happens in the first place?

Break

TL: We’re joined by Anne Marie Blake. Anne Marie is an expert in communications and employee engagement, and the co-founder of True, an employee engagement consultancy. She’s run change programmes and employee programmes for large global organisations, and she’s a founder board member of the PRCA Race, Ethnicity and Equity Board. Welcome, Anne Marie.

Anne Marie Blake: Thank you very much.

TL: Anne Marie, I’m going to jump straight in, because what I’m keen to know is: what are the big lessons from this for other organisations? How do you create a safe culture for employees to avoid this happening in the first place?

AMB: So whenever I hear about scandals like this, particularly ones that have happened a while ago, I kind of always think—well, I generally shake my head, because generally there are always enablers, and there are always people that come out and say that they knew things were going on. That, to me, speaks of organisations that don’t have what has been called psychological safety.

Psychological safety is a term that was coined, I think, by Amy Edmondson in the late 90s. How does psychological safety feel? It feels like you are in a culture where it’s safe to speak up—not necessarily just to speak up when things are going wrong, though that’s important in the examples we’re talking about—but also that your ideas are valued, and there’s no retribution if you make mistakes.

I think some of the lessons for other organisations are that values aren’t just things you should have on your walls. They are things that are lived in the everyday actions of the leaders within your organisations. I would urge people to take a cold, hard look not just at the values they espouse on the walls, but at how they are lived, and what behaviours they tolerate as an organisation.

Because they might think it’s okay to cover it up now, but as we are seeing with the Post Office and Harrods and all the different scandals we’ve seen over recent years—they do come to light eventually. And do you want your name—your personal name—associated with some of those things? So I think those are quite big lessons.

KH: It was such a horrific abuse of power, this example, wasn’t it? You talked about the importance of psychological safety and getting people to speak up. What are the practical things they can do if they suspect something is going on, particularly at the top of the organisation? It can be really hard to challenge leadership and to create a culture where you can do that. It’s really tough. Is there any kind of practical advice you can give?

AMB: Yeah, and I try and ground myself in the practical because, you know, there’s something called a power gap. Particularly if you’re relatively junior in the organisation, you can see all these things going on. The people who are more senior have control over your salary, control over your job, and you may well need those things to pay your mortgage and put food on the table.

So it’s quite hard, I think, just to raise those things, because there’s a real fear that there may be retribution. With the Harrods example that you were speaking about—he actually owned the firm, so ultimately he had full responsibility. It’s not going to be the easiest thing in the world to raise it, because as I said, there will be enablers. There may well have been people saying, “If you say anything, you’re going to be disappearing out the door.”

Assuming we’re talking about larger companies now, there are a couple of practical things you can do if you don’t think that psychological safety exists. Find someone you can confide in. That might be an employee resource group, for example, or a trusted leader that you know lives by the values. Or, as a last resort—or rather, a practical resort—a whistleblowing hotline.

The last few organisations I’ve worked in have had whistleblowing hotlines that I know are taken seriously. I’ve seen some of the things that come through those hotlines and how they’re taken very seriously. For Harrods, it was very different circumstances—he owned the company and had ultimate control, which is why people were scared to speak out.

But today, in other companies, look at some of the things you can do: find a friend, an employee resource group, a trusted leader, or a whistleblowing hotline. And the stories you were talking about earlier are actually criminal behaviour. It’s not just someone behaving inappropriately or shouting at someone, for example. These assaults are criminal acts, so it should be taken seriously.

Ultimately, if you don’t have a whistleblowing hotline, you can go to the legal authorities who can investigate the crime independently.

TL: With this case, I’m sort of curious—because I know Harrods, it seems that they tried to isolate individual cases and to stop employees talking to each other about what was happening. If they had talked to each other, they might have had the confidence to come forward sooner. So how do you actually engage employees to find out what is happening at that sort of ground level?

AMB: So, I mean, it’s difficult if they’re trying to isolate each other, but I was speaking to a group yesterday, actually—I just happened to be in-house doing some training. Some of these people weren’t necessarily concerned, but it was an issue that they all wanted action to be taken on. I said, look, you have power. You have power as a group, as a collective.

So, get together, think in a non-emotional way about some of the issues you want dealt with, and then raise them up the line as a collective, as opposed to as individuals. I think we can sometimes underestimate the power of employee networks and employee groups to have those conversations. I mean, I’ve never worked at Harrods, and it’s quite difficult to have really strong opinions on what might have happened because I wasn’t there. But we can use examples from our own experience where things have been going on in organisations and people know, and they talk about it in their little groups around the water cooler or when they go out.

They talk about specific individuals, and it’s about being brave and being able to take it to the next level. Although, I would say, I don’t underestimate how difficult that can be in organisations where there is not that psychological safety.

TL: The ERG groups and the whistleblowing mechanisms—do you think that’s enough to spot those little pockets of culture where people are saying they knew something was happening? Is there anything else that we’re missing?

AMB: Yeah, I think the big thing that we’re missing is listening in organisations. I don’t just mean doing a survey. I think that managers and leaders shouldn’t be doing their jobs just sat at their desks—they should be out speaking to their employees about what’s really going on. There are little tells where you know something’s not quite right.

For example, if you’re doing a leadership listening lunch and learn, and you ask if there are any questions and no one speaks up—that speaks to me of a culture where people aren’t used to speaking up. It may be that the leaders are new, or they’ve never met them before, or they’re not used to engaging. What I’d encourage them to do is try it a few times. See if people get a bit more used to them as a leader—express a bit of vulnerability.

There is sometimes a “say-do gap” with what leaders say and what they actually do. The classic example is, “My door is always open,” when actually their door, if they have one, isn’t open at all. Or they’re always sharing their opinions and then asking people, “Okay, so what do you think?” That doesn’t really create an environment where people feel free to speak up and express their own opinions.

And it doesn’t always have to be about things going wrong in the organisation. It can be about issues that could make the organisation better—particularly with customer-facing staff who see customers day in, day out. As a leader, you should be able to tell if something’s not quite right—people aren’t speaking up, people aren’t giving their opinions, they look at each other in the virtual or real room—and your responsibility is to try and address that in a systematic way.

It’s not just about launching some new values with posters and a bit of “sheep-dip” training. You’re not addressing the fundamental behaviours—things like calling out bad behaviour from leaders, for example. If people see that there are consequences to bad behaviours that go against your stated values, then they’re more inclined to speak up. But if you speak up once or twice and nothing happens, well—that tells you everything you need to know.

KH: Can I ask you—I want to pick up on something you said, something I’m really interested in. You actually taught me this on a training course that I attended some time ago, about how to ask questions so that you get an answer. I think it’s really interesting that people don’t leave long enough for others to respond. Sometimes you taught me a very simple thing, which is to just count to three before you move on to the next thing, so that somebody who perhaps needs a bit more time to process the question has a chance to speak up.

I’m really interested in how you can ask questions where people do feel they can come forward, and in the different ways of asking questions throughout the organisation. Can you talk a little bit about that?

AMB: Yeah. One of the things I’ve done at a couple of organisations is real listening sessions. The leader goes in—there’s absolutely no fixed agenda, which some leaders are not comfortable with, because they like a set agenda. Particularly in some of the firms I’ve worked in that are very structured. But in this case, there’s literally no agenda.

Smaller groups work better, because it’s easier to speak up in a smaller group of peers than it is in a large setting. The open question is just, “Tell me what’s going on.” And then count to six—and be prepared to ride the silence. It won’t work on this podcast, because no one wants six seconds of dead noise here—but just try it next time you ask a question. Count to six mentally, and I guarantee you’ll get a better quality of answer.

It allows people to understand what you’re asking, process the information, formulate a response, and then speak. That’s one way you could do it—just say, “Tell me what’s on your mind.” I’ve done a few of these where there’s silence at first, and then someone will speak up. It might be something small—like “We work late shifts and the canteen is closed, and there’s never anything healthy in the vending machine.” Or it might be something more serious, like how they’re spoken to, or that leaders don’t listen to them.

You have to treat it not as a one-and-done, but as something done regularly and in a structured way. And, importantly—and this is absolutely vital—action needs to be taken as a result of the conversations you’ve had. In the example I just gave, within a day, the vending machines were stocked with slightly different food. If people see that small actions are taken as a result of the feedback they give, they’re more likely to raise further concerns.

KH: A small action I’m going to take is to realise I said “three seconds,” and now you’ve told me it’s six—so I need to double the hang time I leave. If you’re in an organisation, or in leadership, and you do uncover something that’s happened in the past—like Harrods, with new leadership and a new organisation—I guess a lot of organisations will be tempted to try to hush something up, settle cases individually, and do it quietly.

You can sort of understand why they would want to do that from a reputational point of view. But we always say, don’t we, that openness really is the only way to get to the bottom of what’s going on. You have to be open and transparent. But how do you encourage organisations to do that? Because it takes really brave leadership to properly address what’s happened. At what point should they communicate externally or internally about what’s been going on?

AMB: Yeah, I mean, I’d say a couple of things here. One is that speaking up should be seen as absolutely contributing to success, not as a threat to reputation—I would say that. I’d also suggest that leaders need to reframe some of these situations. If they’ve uncovered something that’s happened in the past, reframe it from “Oh my goodness, this is going to be a real PR and reputational nightmare,” to “This is a risk for our organisation.”

It’s an old saying, but it’s an old saying for a reason—it’s never the crime, it’s always the cover-up that comes back to haunt you. We’re seeing that in more and more cases. So I think, take a deep breath and, importantly, make sure the behaviour that has been uncovered is being addressed. We shouldn’t be using communications and PR to cover up bad behaviour—that’s not what we’re here to do.

Fixing the behaviour, and then, importantly, telling people what you’re doing about it—that’s what matters. As soon as you uncover it, even if you don’t want to go out and announce it, admit to wrongdoing both internally and externally. Importantly, say what’s being done to fix it, and encourage people to come forward if something has happened to them. Create an environment where there won’t be retribution, where people won’t lose their jobs for speaking up. I think it’s really important that they do that.

KH: That’s such an important lesson, isn’t it? And I think there is a real chance to change the culture and the values of the organisation as a result of the crisis.

AMB: Absolutely. And I’d say to leaders that are listening to this—it’s very easy to think, “Do you know what? I just want a quiet life. I’m not going to say anything. I’m going to put my head down and just get on with my role.” But how will you feel when you look in the mirror in five or ten years’ time and it’s your name all over a public inquiry report, or all over the press, as someone who enabled that?

Can you look in the mirror, in all good conscience, and say that you’ve done everything in your power to fix that? With all these things that go wrong, there are always enablers. And the question is—do you want to be an enabler, or do you want to be someone who works hard to fix it?

Outro

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