A former flight attendant for Mohamed al Fayed’s private airline has claimed he sexually assaulted her and had her sacked for refusing to sleep with him.
Jerri MacDonald was 28 when she moved from Cheshire to the South East for what she thought was her dream job as a stewardess for Fayair, now Harrods Aviation.
But in her first broadcast interview, she told Sky News how it quickly became a nightmare.
After her very first flight from London to Paris on al Fayed’s private jet, Ms MacDonald said the billionaire quickly singled her out, and left her “like a deer in headlights” as he insisted she accompany him to the Ritz hotel.
To begin with, she said he wasn’t overly forward. He would hug her, kiss her on the cheek, and give her money. But on her third such trip, she claims he went further.
“I remember sitting on a chair and not having any idea that he suddenly just appeared behind me, and he just placed his hand straight into my blouse,” she said.
“Luckily I managed to grab and lift his hand back out.”
Mohamed al Fayed. Pic: AP
From there, Ms MacDonald said al Fayed‘s behaviour got worse.
On yet another occasion, she said al Fayed called her himself one evening at her home in Essex, to ask her to come to London on the pretext of doing some “office work”. After working late, she spent the night in one of his suites.
“I noticed there were just no locks on the doors at all. So you feel very vulnerable,” she said.
“And I was sat on the settee, and then the next minute, he just let himself in and came over to me. I was kind of startled. And then he just stood there and said, ‘Stand up, stand up’.
“So I stood up and then he just grabbed my hand and said, ‘Come on, we’ll go to the bedroom. We have sex.'”
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Finally, after just five months in the job, Ms MacDonald said her refusal to give into al Fayed’s advances led to her dismissal.
Having once again been invited alone to his London offices, to find he had laid out champagne and strawberries, she said, “he sat next to me. Uncomfortably close”.
She added: “And then he just pushed himself on me, started to kiss me. And I just instinctively kind of pushed his shoulder to get away.
“And he just completely turned on me, just started swearing and just told me, you know, ‘You’re a stupid girl. What did you think I invited you here for? I want to have sex with you’.
“And then he just said, ‘okay, well, I don’t want you to work on my jets any more. You can work in the offices’.”
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Around a week after that incident, Ms MacDonald said she got a phone call to say she was fired.
Sky has approached Harrod’s Aviation for a response to these allegations, but has not yet received a reply.
So far, lawyers acting for alleged victims of al Fayed say around 60 women have come forward.
The Justice for Harrods Survivors group said they expected there were “more to come”.
Harrods managing director Michael Ward has previously said in a statement that “this was a shameful period in the business history” but “the Harrods of today is unrecognisable to Harrods under his ownership”.
“As detailed new information has come to light over the past 18 months, the business has established a settlement process, designed in consultation with independent external experts in personal injury litigation,” he said.
“We encourage former colleagues to contact us using this process so that we can provide the support and recourse they need”.