Mohamed Al-Fayed was ‘horrible’ to his staff’ who ‘all knew’ about his predatory behaviour, the Queen’s son has claimed.
Tom Parker Bowles, 49, worked at Harrods as a teenager and said the owner of the department store was “famous” for talking to the “pretty girls”.
Speaking on The Go-To Food podcast, the food critic claimed that everyone who worked there knew he was “a wrong-un” and implied that Al-Fayed knew who his mother was due to her relationship with the then-Prince Charles.
Police believe Al-Fayed, who died last year and owned Harrods for 25 years, abused at least 11 women between 1977 and 2013 – with the youngest victim aged 13 years old.
His son Dodi was killed in the same car crash as Princess Diana in August 1997.
Recalling his brief stint at Harrods during the summer holidays and on his gap year, Mr Parker Bowles claimed: “I think if you knew at 17 what was going on with Fayed, which we all did on the shop floor…
“I always used to sleep in the store cupboard but [Al-Fayed] was terrifying, this man used to come round the store with his bevvy of bodyguards and at that point my mother was probably on his radar, he accused everyone else of doing everything horrible.
“It was certainly before the Princess of Wales died and all that stuff but still if we knew at 17, 18 that he was a wrong ‘un.
“It was famous, pretty girls he would ask, horrible man, it was fairly obvious at that point.”
US lawyer Gloria Allred, who has acted in several high-profile sexual abuse cases, said at a press conference in September that the “ugly truth” was that under Mr Al Fayed’s chairmanship, Harrods was “a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment”.
Earlier in the podcast, Mr Parker-Bowles spoke about his mother’s health after she reduced her diary after contracting viral pneumonia.
He said: “There’s no great conspiracy theory or anything. She did the tour, and she caught some sort of awful bug.
“And then before she was well again, worked too hard – as she would want to do. But anyway, touch wood, it will all be fine. She’s tough.”
The Queen’s son also revealed that he has received his first invite to spend the festivities with the Royal Family at Christmas this year but he’s “not entirely sure” whether he’ll accept go.
He said: “Usually I spend it with my ex-wife and children… I’m not sure about this Christmas at the moment, very kindly have been invited [to Sandringham].”
