Over 400 alleged victims of billionaire Al-Fayed come forward

Lawyers in the sexual abuse case against the late billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed say more than 400 alleged victims have now come forward. The legal team held a news conference just last hour in London. Three of those alleged victims appeared in person carrying Harrods bags with the logos crossed out as you can see in these pictures. Mohamed Al-Fayed was the former owner of Harrods. Many of his accusers are former employees. He died last year at the age of 94 and the allegations against him include rape, sexual battery, sexual abuse of minors. Crystal Gamansingh is live in London and she was attending that news conference. We got these brand new details from investigators and lawyers. Crystal, what have we learned today? Well, Heather, we are learning that this legal case is really expanding. Now the lawyers for Harrods survivors say they are not only looking at Harrods, that world-famous department store which was owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed between 1985 and 2010, but they're now also looking at the Al-Fayed estate and the women's Fulham football club. And that is because so many more complainants, 421 individuals have reached out to these lawyers with complaints against Al-Fayed. Now they, with those complaints coming forward, they're looking at all of these other entities that they say Al-Fayed had his quote tentacles in. One of those individuals at the Fulham football club was the 20-year-old captain at the time, Ronnie Gibbons. And Ronnie says that she was sexually assaulted by Al-Fayed back when she was the captain of the team. She recorded a video message and talked about how she now feels that she has the strength to come forward and share her details and her story because of the other survivors. And I want to play a little bit of that recorded message from her. I would have really liked to have met some of the other amazingly brave ladies who are speaking up about Mohamed Al-Fayed and his appalling behavior. Seeing you speak helped me to have the courage to get in touch with the barristers. And as difficult as it's been, it's been very empowering. And I know that by speaking out, we're making it harder for this kind of behavior to be tolerated anywhere. I know we are making it easier for others to speak up. Now the lawyers say that these organizations had a responsibility to protect their employees and that they failed all of these women. We can say of that 421 individuals, about 25 of those are not making direct claims on their behalf, but are providing witness testimony and documentations to support the abuse allegations. Important to note that none of these allegations can be proven in court. As you mentioned, Al-Fayed passed away last year. But the scale of this investigation and the number of women coming forward is being described as shocking. In fact, one of the lawyers, Bruce Drummond, called it industrial in scale. In our opinion is an industrial scale abuse. Abuse that could have only been perpetrated with a system that enabled the abuse to happen. And that is what is so key to this case and why this case, as I've said before, in many ways is the worst case of corporate sexual abuse of women that the world has ever known. Now, these numbers are likely to change, according to the lawyer, saying every day they're being contacted by more individuals. We went from 37 original women who had retained the legal team back in September. That number is rising. They now have more than 160 individuals from that 400 who have signed on. So it is really continuing to develop, Heather. And any idea what's going to come next in this case, Crystal? Yeah, so a big part of this case was actually the very first statement of claim being filed against Harrods. That was filed today. It involves one of the Harrods survivors. The lawyers say there will be a continuous flow of those statement of claims being filed at this point. And they have said that they've also engaged another law firm, a very large law firm, to help ensure all of these claims can be processed in a timely manner. Crystal Gemansi, live in London, thank you very much.