A 61-year-old woman has waived her anonymity to speak out about the abuse
A woman who claims she was “drugged and abused” by Mohamed Al Fayed and “raped” by his associate has waived her right to anonymity after being identified as a victim of modern slavery. Joanna Brittan, 61, says she was one of multiple victims linked to the abuse by the Harrods billionaire Al Fayed, and was raped and trafficked by one of his close business associates Ahmed Obaidly.
Now, Joanna has decided to speak publicly in the hope that other women who may have been abused will come forward. Joanna claims she was raped by Ahmed Obaidly, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) chief diplomat, and enslaved by Al Fayed.
In 2017 she reported a series of crimes to Devon and Cornwall police including multiple rapes by Obaidly and trafficking by both of them, as well as allegations involving Al Fayed in the 1990s.
Her case is now being reviewed by the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) – the government system for identifying potential victims of modern slavery. Both Obaidly and Al Fayed have since died.
Joanna, from Totnes, Devon, is hoping that the police will expand their investigation to examine whether others may have enabled or facilitated the abuse she claims she endured. Joanna says she was taken in a locked limousine to Al Fayed’s estate in Surrey, where she alleges she was threatened and pressured into accepting a position as a nanny to Al Fayed’s four children.
Joanna says she subsequently experienced a gap in her memory and fears that, like other women, she may have been drugged and abused during that period. She cannot recall how she left the property or how long she remained there.
She said: “Obaidly was waiting for me with his diplaumatic chauffeured limousine. He told me to get in. His attitude had completely changed towards me. He appeared cold and distant. I asked him where he was taking me. He wouldn’t respond. This made me feel quite anxious. We drove out of London, south towards Gatwick – he was taking me to Oxted, Mohammed Al Fayed’s private estate.”
Joanna added: “He said we were invited for lunch when we arrived. I remembered certain details about the lunch, the men spoke together as usual in Arabic. I was given the chance to speak about what I might like to do in terms of work, a new job perhaps. At launch I explained that I had a degree in Russian and I spent a year in USSR so I said I could be a buyer for Harrods. I pitched to save my life because I thought they were trying to kill me.”
She continued: “Al Fayed said ‘I want you to be nanny my children’ and I said to the men privately that this was ridiculous because I had no experience whatsoever with children and what about my other idea. I was shown a flat above the stables where Mohammed said I should live. It was very frightening because it was being presented to me as a fait accompli.”
She added: “I think I must have become completely overwhelmed because from that point onwards I lost my memory. So either I was drugged at lunch in the wine or whatever it was, or it was just too much trauma – they were really dark people.”
During the 1990s, Joanna was hoping to join the Foreign Office as a diplomat and was working in the British Embassy in Doha making visas and passports. However, when the Gulf War broke at the beginning of August 1990, the embassy told her and the other staff to fly back home as soon as they could.
Back in the UK, she then applied for a job helping to manage the estate of a UAE royal in Mayfar. She said: “I still have my passport, which shows that the 10th of August was the day I arrived in London, and I knew that I had to get a job. I left my father to fight as a fighter pilot in the Gulf War, and just had to find a job really fast.”
She added: “So I applied to a top PA agency and it was a multilingual PA agency in Mayfair and I was selected, in the end, out of 10 candidates. They wanted a French speaking and it said a royal family of the Middle Eastern, bilingual with French want a PA who’s willing to travel. I put myself forward for the job, thinking that the background I had, would be really helpful, in that kind of position.”
She said that one of the people who selected her was Ahmed Obaidly, the chief diplomat of United Arab Emirates (UAE). Joanna claims that, as part of the process to get the job, her recruiter insisted she was tested for sexually transmitted infections at the UAE embassy medical practice.
She said: “It was kind of a forced gynaecological examination and the doctor was foreign, and I had nobody with me. I didn’t want to have it. It was compulsory. It was quite sinister to me. It was a pre-meditated rape. I was sexually health tested as part of my recruitment process.”
She says she was then made to sign an NDA about the work she was doing. According to Joanna, she was later offered accommodation by Obaidly where she alleges he raped her three times.
She said: “After I started living there, he’d creep in the night, to this room, which was quite basic, it wasn’t like the rest of the house, which was very opulent. It was like a maid’s quarters with a mattress on the floor. He raped me three times during the time that I lived there. For maybe a month, I lived there, and he might have raped me more often because he could have been using drugs.”
Joanna alleges Obaidly also assaulted her on trips to Cannes in his penthouse and sexually harassed her continuously and also took her to Paris Ritz. She has been interviewed by French police as part of their ongoing trafficking investigation.
Joanna said she was unable to flee because she had nowhere to go and ended up feeling “more dependent” on him. She added: “I felt more and more dependent on him. But the other thing was because they were very frightening people, they were very reach and powerful. All the buildings I was taken to they were five star properties in the south of France. I felt that the job was very important for me to make something of myself and my family to be proud of me. So, I endured.”
She added: “I didn’t have anywhere else to go, but I was afraid of them as well – it was like coercive control. I think people understand it more, but these are very, very powerful abusers.”
She also said that was presented to Al Fayed three times on the top floor of Harrods. “It was like a VIP office – I was paraded like a trophy,” she said.
Soon afterwards Joanna says she was dismissed from her job and she alleges the recruiter pressured her into signing a non-disclosure agreement and made threats against her. According to Joanna, she was then taken in a locked limousine to Al Fayed’s estate in Surrey, where she alleges she was threatened and pressured into accepting a position as a nanny.
Joanna says she subsequently experienced a gap in her memory and fears that, like other women, she may have been drugged and abused during that period. She cannot recall how she left the property or how long she remained there.
In December 2017, Joanna’s statement was sent from Devon & Cornwall Police to the Met. Police say no further action was taken at the time as Obaidly had died in 2015 and there was insufficient evidence to pursue a case against Al Fayed before his death in 2023.
The trafficking legislation that was in place at the date of the offending is not the same as the legislation that is in place today. The Met says the way it works has “moved on immeasurably” and that “our teams have transformed the way we investigate rape and sexual offences”.
Joanna has recently been reinterviewed and the NRM modern slavery referral made. She is not the only woman to report she was raped by Obaidly. A live investigation by the Metropolitan police into those who may have facilitated or enabled Al Fayed’s offending is continuing, and it is urging anyone with information to come forward.
Criminal allegations Brittan made against Al Fayed now form part of Operation Cornpoppy – the ongoing active investigation into individuals who may have enabled or facilitated offending by the former Harrods owner. Brittan is one of more than 200 alleged Al Fayed survivors who will take part in a virtual meeting with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday (June 10) afternoon.
She said: “When I reported the multiple rapes to the police I felt that I came out of my body, and it was like I was on the ceiling, watching it from above, that I dissociated, quite readily. He was a big, heavy man, and I remember the smell of him, and the fact that he was very lame, he had a hip problem, so when he walked, he kind of rolled.”
She added: “It’s taking me a very long time to expose but it’s very important that I speak out and waive my anonymity to help other people. It didn’t happen that fast, but the whole thing was horrific, and it completely ruined my career trajectory. It destroyed me and I never became a diplomat because of the way that I saw him getting away with rape and trafficking like that – it destroyed me.”
Joanna continued: “I became a PA for billionaires very high level stuff in Mayfair, but then I left London in ’99 and came to Totnes, without knowing a soul. And I think that’s really clear, the effect of the abuse that I would do something so extreme. I sold my flat due to the threats of life.”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: “The live investigation into those who could have facilitated or enabled Mohamed Al Fayed’s offending continues. The way the Met works has moved on immeasurably, and our teams have transformed the way we investigate rape and sexual offences.”
They added: “We’re working with partners across the criminal justice system to ensure that victim-survivors are at the heart of our response, with a greater focus on suspects and their offending. We continue to support all victims and we urge anyone with information, whether they were directly affected by Mohamed Al Fayed’s actions or aware of others who may have been involved, or committed offences to come forward.”
The statement continued: “We cannot comment further at this time, but will provide an update as soon as we are able to and where this won’t jeopardise criminal or other proceedings.”
Harrods said they don’t comment on individual cases. It added: “Harrods continues to support the bravery of all women in coming forward. Their claims point to the breadth of abuse by Mohamed Fayed and the picture that has emerged suggests that this pattern of abusive behaviour took place wherever he operated.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting any victim of abuse and modern slavery, and our VAWG Strategy sets out how the full power of the state will be deployed to deliver the largest ever crackdown on violence against women and girls in British history.”
They added: “Operational decisions about investigations are matters for the police, but the Minister has committed to ensuring that the Home Office supports agencies to work effectively together, and that any systemic issues raised by survivors are given consideration.”
The UAE embassy and the company Joanna says she worked for have not responded to requests for comment from SWNS.
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