Former director of Harrods says Al Fayed tried to control me with envelopes of cash.

A former director has told the BBC that Mohammed al-Fayed manipulated Harrods managers, whom he believed to have been involved in, to cover up his crimes. Couldn’t control them, fired them.

Jon Brillant, who worked in al-Fayed’s private office for 18 months, says the late businessman handed him envelopes full of cash – about $50,000 (£39,000) – to compromise and control him. tried

“He tried to adopt you. And eventually, I was fired because I couldn’t be bought,” he says.

Harrods did not respond to Mr Brilliant’s claims. He has previously said he was “absolutely horrified” by allegations of abuse, adding that it was “very different to the organization owned and controlled by Al Fayed”.

Mr Brilliant says he was “horrified” when he first heard the allegations that Al Fayed abused hundreds of women and said he “beat himself up” over whether he should have been questioned further. .

He told the BBC of surveillance, dismissals and a culture designed to prevent senior managers from trusting or communicating with each other.

This made it difficult for him to do his duty as a director to make an independent judgment and test Al Fayed’s strength – or to ask questions that might have revealed more about how he was treating women.

“I can see 100% how the management structure and the culture was set up to cover up, to mask people,” says Mr. Brilliant.

Four other former directors have anonymously confirmed elements of the picture.

A US citizen, Mr. Brilliant was 36 years old when he joined the firm in August 2000. He was hired to relaunch Harrods’ online business.

He says that shortly before his first business trip to visit Microsoft in Seattle, Al Fayed handed him a brown envelope containing $5,000 (£3,993) in $50 notes.

After the trip he tried to get a full refund. He says Al-Fayed refused, asking him, “Didn’t you need any entertainment?”

Mr. Brilliant replied that he didn’t need it – he was too busy to go to the cinema or the theatre, and someone else had paid for the dinner.

Receiving cash before business trips – large notes of pounds, francs or dollars depending on his destination – continued for the next six months.

Three senior colleagues advised Mr Brilliant at the time that Al Fayed was trying to compromise him.

Mr Brilliant says he told him: “He was trying to get you to come back and say ‘Oh, I spent money on drugs or I spent money, did something I shouldn’t have done. should have,’ and they can then use that information against you if you ever want to turn it on.

He adds: “I have certainly known people who … succumbed to temptation.”

Mr. Brilliant continued to try to repay the money, until his family arrived in London and he began looking for a house. With Al-Fayed’s consent, he put her into buying a property.

Al Fayed had a form of using envelopes of cash as a tool of power and control. He caused a scandal in the 1990s when he paid MPs to ask questions in the House of Commons and then exposed those who had accepted his gifts.

Mr Brilliant believes he was not immune to Al Fayed’s extensive use of bugging and surveillance, carried out by the Harrods owner’s large team of security guards.

“When I tell you this story now, I kind of laugh and the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, realizing that my phones are listening,” he says.

Mr. Brilliant’s first suspicion that he might be corrupt came in 2002, shortly before he was fired. After a dispute over Fulham FC’s funding, the words of a private phone conversation with someone in America were relayed back to him at a meeting.

Another former Harrods director, who did not want to be named, told us that when he started at the store, he walked into a property owned by Al Fayed and was warned by one of the security team that the bug is done

The director says he and his wife would jokingly say “good morning” to the security guards who would be listening when they woke up.

He noticed that many directors kept a personal mobile phone as well as a work phone, because they feared that the Harrods phone might be bugged.

Mr Brilliant, who has returned to the US, says he was “shocked” when he first heard of the BBC investigation.

“I look back and say, ‘Should I have seen something? Did I miss something?’ And I’m over it,” he says.

He worked in Al Fayed’s “ring of steel” office suite on the fifth floor of Harrods, protected by two sets of security doors. He says there was a group of administrative assistants who were all young, blonde and attractive.

Mr. Brilliant remembers him as “obedient.” He explains: “The concept was ‘do this, jump, how high should I jump?’ — and really being on the ball. Muhammad demanded a lot of people, and he was playing his part.”

He added that he now questions whether women behaved in such a way because of what was happening.

When challenged on whether he should have done more to protect women, he says he asks himself if he could have.

“I wasn’t aware of the amount of information that would have otherwise indicated that something deeper was going on.”

Mr Brilliant says Harrods’ managers were at odds with each other and were then expected to keep a close eye on their rivals.

In addition to his core role, he was given partial oversight of a range of Al Fayed interests, including Fulham FC and the Paris Ritz.

“I was asked to supervise people I had no right to supervise,” says Mr. Brilliant. In turn, he found that “people were looking over my shoulder”.

He says information was treated like “currency” and people jockeyed to share it with the boss for “cree fever.”

This has been confirmed by an anonymous director. He told us that there was no trust between the directors. “Everybody was on the defensive.”

In his 1997 biography of Al Fayed, journalist Tom Bower described Harrods as a “medieval court” where the survival of executives depended on “absolute loyalty” and “sowing suspicions about rivals”. So happy gossip” was on.

Senior managers at Harrods were sacked with such regularity that Mr Brilliant says it was a “running joke” in the store.

Managers were sacked or left so often that The Sunday Times began publishing a regular count, which reached 48 in 2005 – before a legal letter stopped it.

Many dismissals ended up in legal proceedings or employment tribunals. Some were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), although Mr Brilliant was not.

But few managers lasted more than a decade. And to do that, you had to have a “frontal lobotomy,” Mr. Brilliant said.

Some, he felt, were compromised and unable to speak. For others, “I think you just had to do what you were told to do, do it with a smile… no original thinking, unwilling to challenge the status quo, just willing to accept. are.”

The BBC tried to contact as many long-serving former Harrods directors as possible, but none were willing to be interviewed.

Although he only worked there for 18 months, Mr Brilliant said he wanted to speak to the BBC for two reasons.

“One, if there’s anything I can say or do that shows support for women who have been treated horribly, traumatized, I want to do whatever I can. .

“Secondly, my hope is that by my willingness to speak, others will come and speak for themselves.”

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