Police dismissed a teenage girl who reported an alleged sexual assault by Mohamed Al Fayed in 1995, saying they would add her name to a pile of similar claims.
Last month the Metropolitan police said the first report of sexual assault by the Harrods owner had been made in 2005. After the family of Samantha-Jane Ramsay, who has since died, came forward, the force said it had no computer record of her report but it may have been paper-based and not transferred.
The young woman, known as Sam, also told her story to the News of the World in 1998.
Her family has now contacted the law firm Leigh Day, which has received allegations of sexual misconduct against Fayed from more than 100 women. “We know 100% my sister would have been speaking out if she was here,” said Ramsay’s sister, Emma Wills.
Ramsay began working in Harrods’ toy department at the age of 17. According to the account she gave to the News of the World, five days into her job she was summoned to Fayed’s office and offered a promotion.
At a second meeting, Fayed told her she would need to have a medical, kissed her, touched her inappropriately and handed her £200. She fled from his office in tears.
She reported the incident to her supervisor, who “just sighed and said ‘another one’”, she told the News of the World. Soon after, she was sacked.
The following day Ramsay reported the incident at Marylebone police station in central London. After the Met took no action, her family said they reported the alleged assault to their local police station in Hampshire. A statement was taken and sent to the Met, but the family heard nothing more.
The alleged assault had a detrimental impact on Ramsay’s mental health and she tried to kill herself, her family said. She died aged 28 when she lost control of her car and crashed.
Wills said: “No one believed her or did anything about it and that’s enough to make anyone go crazy. She reported what happened to her 30 years ago and he was allowed to continue for another 20 years. That must have played on her mind.
“She did all the right things to try and blow the whistle and had the bravery and courage to try to hold Fayed accountable but no one was interested, no one would help her … If they had dealt with it properly, how many women could have been saved from his abuse?”
The Met has said it has found reports from 21 women who accused Fayed between 2005 and his death in 2023.
The Justice for Harrods Survivors group said this week that 421 women had come forward to lawyers, alleging sexual misconduct by Fayed. Most related to Harrods, but there were also claims of misconduct at Fulham FC and the Ritz hotel in Paris, which Fayed also owned.
A lawyer representing the survivors’ group said it was one of the worst cases of corporate abuse of women ever seen.
Harrods has said it is in the process of settling more than 250 claims for compensation brought by women alleging sexual misconduct by Fayed.
Emma Jones of Leigh Day said: “The fact that [Sam’s] report to the police does not appear to be included in the 21 reports against Fayed that they have confirmed to the media, and indeed pre-dates those by a decade, raises even more questions about the actions of the police in this matter and further strengthens the calls for a statutory public inquiry.
“As Sam’s family have said, it also raises questions about how many women could have been saved from abuse if Sam’s complaints had been taken seriously and handled properly 30 years ago.”
Commander Stephen Clayman of the Met said: “The way the Met works has moved on immeasurably in the last 30 years, and our teams have transformed the way we investigate rape and sexual offences … We have made significant changes and progress to deliver better outcomes for victims.”
