65 other women told the BBC about abuse dating back to the 1970s

A further 65 women have contacted the BBC and said they had been abused by Mohamed Al Fayed. The allegations extend far beyond Harrods and date back to 1977.

Their reports contain new details about sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape that have been sent to the BBC in the weeks since the documentary was made Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods and a Podcast were broadcast.

They suspect Al Fayed, who died last year, used a wider range of abusive tactics and also targeted women employed outside his companies.

Several of the women interviewed by the BBC say they were recruited by Al Fayed under false pretenses to positions on the billionaire’s domestic staff and then sexually exploited by him – including at his Oxted villa.

In the first allegation of abuse heard by the BBC, a woman says she was attacked by Al Fayed in Dubai in 1977, eight years before his purchase of Harrods helped him become a household name in Britain.

She describes how Al Fayed personally persecuted and threatened her. Women who worked at Harrods said he later used similar intimidation tactics by a team of security personnel.

Of the 65 women who contacted the BBC to share their accounts of abuse, 37 said they worked at Harrods.

In response to the BBC’s queries, Harrods told us: “Since the documentary was broadcast, more than 200 people have now entered the Harrods process to settle claims directly with the company.”

The BBC also spoke to women who were not employed by Al Fayed who said they had been approached and assaulted by him.

One woman said she was working in a London flower shop in the early 1980s when she was discovered by a member of Al Fayed’s team. The then 21-year-old said she was flown to the Ritz in Paris for what was supposed to be a job interview, where Al Fayed sexually abused her.

A former BBC make-up artist also said she was sexually abused by Al Fayed while working on a 1989 episode of The Clothes Show in which the billionaire was interviewed at Villa Windsor, his home in Paris.

Warning: This story contains details that some may find disturbing

Margot, whose name we have changed, was 19 years old when she responded to a job advertisement in The Lady magazine in 1985 for a job as a nanny and governess in Surrey. She submitted her application and a photo as requested.

Having previously worked as a nanny, she remembers finding it strange that at the end of her interview she was asked “if I had a boyfriend or if I ever had a boyfriend”.

“I said no…”[The interviewer] looked relieved about that,” she told the BBC.

It was only when she was offered the job that she was told the position was with Al Fayed and his family at their mansion Barrow Green Court in Oxted. Her mother encouraged her to try a month-long trial.

“I remember being driven in a chauffeur-driven limousine through the incredibly impressive entrance gates to Barrow Green Court and up the long drive to a huge brick house,” she says.

Inside, Margot says she was shown a small, dimly lit room containing a single bed, a desk and an internal telephone.

She soon learned to fear the sound of the ringing and the call of Al Fayed. Expecting to see the children, she would find him alone. That’s when the repeated sexual assaults began, she says.

“The job simply didn’t exist. He didn’t need a nanny. He didn’t want a nanny,” she told the BBC.

Margot says she only saw the children twice for five days and was not allowed to interact with them. Instead, every time she was asked by Al Fayed, she said she had been sexually abused by him – in various locations around the property, including the indoor pool, gardens and study.

She felt trapped. “Once you’re in the house, you can’t get out. You have to go down a long driveway and through large gates at the bottom. He has to give permission for the gates to open,” Margot told the BBC.

She says Al Fayed came into her room early one morning, got in her bed, pushed her against the wall and raped her vaginally and anally.

After he left her room, she immediately packed her suitcase and told Al Fayed later that day that she wanted to leave and didn’t understand why she was there. But he refused, telling her the job description would “become much clearer over time.”

He told her to wait another 24 hours, he would buy her a house and give her more money. She says he became very angry when she told him again that she wanted to leave.

“I was held as a prisoner at Barrow Green Court against my will for several days and I still feel that I was very lucky to escape.”

She says he eventually let her go, but when she left, a staff member told her to “not say anything about my time here or my life would become very difficult.”

“Looking back, I believe I was simply recruited as a potential sexual partner or plaything for Al Fayed, hence the interview questions to determine whether I was a virgin,” says Margot.

“The events of this week have affected me ever since, I am not the same trusting person and never will be.”

The BBC has also heard reports from other women who say they were hired as nannies, cooks and maids who say they were abused in his private homes. They also say the jobs seemed non-existent when they arrived and believe they were hired under false pretenses.

When news of abuse allegations against Al Fayed broke, memories that Sheenagh had tried to forget for 47 years came flooding back. She waived her right to anonymity to share her story.

“I heard dates, but that was before that. That was me before,” she told the BBC. She began to ask herself, “Was I the beginning?”

Sheenagh was 25 and working in a bank in Dubai when she first met Al Fayed after moving there for her husband’s construction job.

She says his visits as a client became more regular and he began inquiring about her personal life and professional history before offering to meet about a possible position with him.

As she sat across the desk in his office down the street, Sheenagh said he walked around and came up behind her.

“When I turned around, my hands went over my shoulders. His hands were everywhere,” she says.

Sheenagh says Al Fayed sexually abused her and blocked the door when she tried to leave.

She says she slapped him and eventually managed to get past him, but he told her, “You might regret this.”

Sheenagh says Al Fayed then constantly stalked her, turning up at her workplace, supermarket and club and repeating his parting words.

“The threat was there the whole time,” she says.

“One time he said, ‘I warned you you’d regret it…did you notice I’m always there?'”

Sheenagh says this happened about 20 times and on a few occasions he followed her again and groped her.

“I always prayed that someone else would actually see this and thought if someone else saw it happening, it was real and someone would do something,” she adds.

She says he had a terrible hold on her until he seemed to disappear. She later learned that he had left Dubai and she felt like she could breathe a sigh of relief again.

It wasn’t until 2015, when her late ex-husband’s health began to deteriorate, that she finally told him what had happened.

“I told him because I knew he was nearing the end of his life. And I felt like he had to know. Because it was the only secret I had ever kept from him.”

Sheenagh says what happened makes her angry now and her biggest regret is not speaking out sooner, before Al Fayed died.

• If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this story, you can visit us BBC Action Line.

Additional reporting by Helena Wilkinson