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A woman who says she was sexually assaulted by the former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed has criticised the Metropolitan police for not investigating human trafficking claims against him relating to alleged abuses against her and other women.
Pelham Spong, 40, from South Carolina, hit out at the Met after French police interviewed her this week as part of an investigation into alleged human trafficking and pimping in connection with Fayed, who died two years ago.
Spong told officers on Monday that she had been trafficked in Paris on Fayed’s orders in 2008 before being sent to London to be sexually assaulted by him.
She told investigators from the Central Office for the Repression of Human Trafficking that Fayed, who owned the Ritz hotel in Paris, had forcibly kissed her and offered her a salary of €65,000 a year if she slept with him.
Spong, who has waived her right to anonymity, reported the alleged sexual assault by Fayed to the Met police in 2017. But the investigation was closed as police said there was insufficient evidence to refer the case to prosecutors.
She said: “I think it’s an absolute shame that in order to get this called trafficking, I’ve had to go to France. The Met are not calling it sex trafficking. How do they expect us to have faith in this ongoing investigation that has been now a year into the works with zero arrests?”
Spong’s French lawyer, Anne-Claire Le Jeune, said her client had been raising allegations of human trafficking consistently since 2017.
She said investigators were seeking to determine whether Fayed’s assistants and members of staff in France, particularly at the Ritz, had known what was happening to women they arranged to be sent to London and whether there had been an understanding between them and the late billionaire.
“There is a question for individuals but also for the institution itself,” Le Jeune said of the Ritz. “Is it a place that facilitated the recruitment and transfer of young women to London?”
She added: “The ongoing inquiry should establish whether the Ritz and certain members of its staff were aware of the actions attributed to Mr Al Fayed, and whether they played any part in recruiting and transferring to the UK any individuals employed by him, knowing the conditions under which these acts allegedly took place.”
Spong recounted that she had been required to undergo an intimate gynaecological examination in London, the results of which, she said, were passed to Fayed, who appeared to know she had been diagnosed with a minor bacterial infection.
Bridgette Carr, a clinical professor of law and co-director of the Human Trafficking and Immigration Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School, said the Fayed allegations appeared to amount to human trafficking.
Carr, who consulted on a trafficking lawsuit about Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, said the testimony of the alleged Fayed victims she had spoken to contained elements of sex trafficking and forced labour.
“What’s consistent across all of their stories are the power and control required by human trafficking and the systemic involvement of lots of different people and companies,” she said.
It is also alleged that Fayed transferred female staff from the Ritz to his private residence in Paris and to yachts and family homes on the Mediterranean coast.
Carr said: “I think the untold story of trafficking, partially being told by Epstein and partially maybe being told by Fayed, is the most effective traffickers don’t do anything themselves, meaning they rely on systems that they can get to work for them. They don’t have to go out on the street and grab women and girls, but instead they have an office that they walk down the hall to and they ask them to do that.”
In August, the Met said 146 people had reported crimes as part of its investigation into Fayed. It is also investigating associates of Fayed who “may have assisted or facilitated” him in alleged rapes and sexual assaults.
The Met voluntarily referred itself to the UK’s police watchdog in January after complaints from Spong and another woman regarding prior investigations into Fayed. Although 21 women accused the tycoon between 2005 and 2023, he was never charged.
Spong’s complaint to the Independent Office for Police Conduct said Met officers had failed to challenge a claim from Fayed that he was too ill to respond to her sexual assault allegation. Her lawyer’s letter to the watchdog said this reflected an “apathy towards victims” or an “institutional desire to insulate Mr Al Fayed from prosecution”.
Last year allegations emerged that corrupt Met police officers had helped Fayed in persecuting members of his staff, including a young woman who allegedly rebuffed the Harrods owner’s sexual advances.
In a statement, the Ritz Paris said it was “deeply alarmed” by the reported abuse allegations and would cooperate fully with the French judicial authorities.
A spokesperson said: “Our teams do not tolerate any form of inappropriate conduct and we would like to express our deepest sympathy to the women who have come forward.”
The Met police have been approached for comment.
