Scotland Yard is facing claims that corrupt police officers helped Mohamed Al Fayed in persecuting members of his staff, including a young woman who allegedly rebuffed the Harrods owner’s sexual advances. One detective constable, who is accused of regularly taking cash bribes to carry out Fayed’s wishes, was secretly given a mobile phone from Harrods to facilitate his illicit work, according to a former security chief at the luxury department store. Separately, a senior commander in the Met was alleged to have received large Harrods hampers “whenever he had been a particularly great help”, and Fayed was described as “ingenious” in his use of the police to access confidential records on the Police National Computer.
One alleged victim of the corruption is said to have been a young nanny to Fayed’s children, Hermina da Silva, who was was dismissed in 1994 after apparently rejecting the billionaire’s advances. She was arrested on trumped up allegations of theft after threatening a sexual harassment case but was later released without charge. “It’s amazing what they will do for just a few readies,” John Macnamara, Fayed’s long-time security chief and an ex-detective, was said to have remarked about the police at the time of Da Silva’s arrest.
A Met police spokesman said: “We are carrying out full reviews of all existing allegations reported to us about Al Fayed to ensure there are no new lines of enquiry based on new information which has emerged. This.