The Harrods boss has issued a personal apology for the first time in relation to sexual abuse allegations against the store’s late owner Mohamed Al Fayed.

The BBC approached Michael Ward at Harrods headquarters and said: “I am very sorry for what has happened to Al Fayed.”

Hundreds of women have reported that the billionaire raped or sexually abused them. Police are investigating some claims. and Harrods is also resolving hundreds of claims.

Ward, who has been CEO of Harrods since 2005, worked alongside Al Fayed until 2010 and had previously said he was not aware of any abuse.

Harrods’ new owner, the Qatar Investment Authority, said an internal review was underway and declined to say whether it had identified or taken any action against anyone currently working there.

Al Fayed, who died last year at age 94, was accused of sexual assault by more than 20 women in a BBC documentary and podcast in September.

Hundreds of people have contacted the BBC directly about Harrods and Mohamed Al-Fayed since the documentary Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods was broadcast.

More than 70 of them were from women who sent the BBC their accounts of abuse by Al-Fayed, including sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape.

Ward said in a statement in September that he had resigned from his role as trustee of the Royal Ballet and Opera while the review at Harrods takes place.

He added in the statement that he was unaware of the abuse at Harrods and that Al Fayed “presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussions and sexual misconduct”, calling it a “shameful period”.

He said no formal complaints had been made to him during his stay with Al Fayed, although rumors about his behavior were in the “public domain”.

The BBC had asked Mr Ward for an interview to try to find out what senior staff at Harrods knew about the allegations at the time, but was refused.

During the BBC’s visit to Harrods’ headquarters, Ward said Harrods had “nothing further to add”.

The abuse allegedly took place at Fulham FC, the Ritz Hotel in Paris, Harrods and other venues owned by Al Fayed.

Harrods previously told the BBC it was in the process of resolving more than 250 Compensation claims filed by Al Fayed victims. That number has since risen to more than 290. The luxury department store has a compensation plan for former employees who say they were attacked by Al Fayed, which is separate from the legal case against him.

Fayed owned Harrods between 1985 and 2010. The store’s new owners have previously said they are “horrified” by the sexual abuse allegations and have been investigating since 2023 whether any current members of staff were involved.

Lawyers for some of the victims said they were working on a claim against Al Fayed’s property as well as Harrods, adding that they expected to send hundreds more claims to the department stores and that this would be “a snowball and a snowball”.

In 2008, allegations were made against Al Fayed of indecent assault on a 15-year-old girl and were covered by the press at the time. Al Fayed denied the allegations and the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to press charges due to conflicting evidence.

Last week the BBC revealed that the The Metropolitan Police were informed of the allegations of sexual assault by Mohamed Al Fayed a decade earlier than he has acknowledged

Human rights activist Dame Jasvinder Sanghera will meet “as many survivors as possible” and guide them through the compensation process, according to the retailer.

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