Almost half of the women who reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mohamed Al Fayed to the Metropolitan police are potential victims of human trafficking, MPs have been told.
Trafficked? When they mostly will have got on a train or plane themselves to take up a job?
In a briefing for the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for the survivors of Fayed and Harrods in July, senior Met officers said a review earlier this year found 70 survivors’ accounts bore the hallmarks of trafficking. The Home Office has confirmed that at least five survivors were victims of international and domestic trafficking.
The Met’s figures suggested the number of confirmed cases could climb much higher, said the Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain, a co-chair of the APPG.“I can’t believe that wouldn’t increase,” said Chamberlain, who also compared the scale of Fayed’s abuse to Jimmy Savile’s.
The only real similarity is the fact that the police and establishment ignored it too, until the alleged abuser was safely dead. And for much the same reason.
Amy, who lives in Italy, said she was trafficked from Harrods, where she initially worked on the shop floor, and her home to Fayed’s other properties. She said she was transferred to a PA role in his private residence and office at 60 Park Lane in London, where he allegedly sexually abused her, including groping her breasts and forced kissing. She said Fayed also took her in his private car and helicopter to his estate in Oxted, Surrey, where she was sexually assaulted in a lagoon-style swimming pool located behind a concealed door.
“I would be removed from my home in Hammersmith and then be changed into clothes like Lacoste polo shirts and Bermuda shorts and boat shoes, which I absolutely hated,” said Amy. “That was robbing me of my actual identity. Whoever saw me leave my bedsit would say that’s not her. That’s a strong component of what trafficking is and was very calculating.”
She makes it sound like a kinapping - did it ever occour to her to find another job and quit this one.. ?
Eleanor Lyons, the independent anti-slavery commissioner, said the Home Office’s statutory guidance explicitly stated that people needed to be in the UK to be referred to the NRM. Lyons said this was because the process involved getting access to support including a safe house and counselling, which officials believed would be difficult to provide to people who do not live in the UK. But she called on the Home Office to reconsider the requirement because many affected people she spoke to just wanted to be recognised as trafficking victims, adding that the situation was causing deep distress for alleged survivors of Fayed’s abuse. A Met police spokesperson said: “We were previously making referrals to the Home Office for victims living in the UK and abroad, but those relating to victims living abroad were being rejected. As a result, we have paused any further such referrals. Should the Home Office position change, we will restart those submissions. Our support to victims continues, regardless of where they live.”
Well, as the hunt for Madeline peters out, got to get that overdeas travel somehow. Do all the overseas complaianants live near golf courses, perchance?
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