BBC
Jon Brilliant joined Harrods in 2000 to revive its online business
Mohamed Al Fayed manipulated Harrods executives to cover up his crimes, firing those he could not control, a former manager has told the BBC.
Jon Brilliant, who worked in Al Fayed's private office for 18 months, claims the late contractor handed him envelopes stuffed with cash – totaling around $50,000 (£39,000) – in an attempt to compromise him and control it.
“He tried to possess you. And eventually I got fired because I couldn’t be bought,” he says.
Harrods has not responded to Mr Brilliant's claims. The organization previously said it was “totally appalled” by the allegations of abuse, adding that it was a “very different organization to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed”.
Mr Brilliant says he was 'horrified' when he first heard allegations that Al Fayed abused hundreds of women and says he 'began' over whether he was something he should have questioned more.
He spoke to the BBC about surveillance, firings and a culture designed to prevent senior leaders from trusting or communicating with each other.
This made it more difficult for them to fulfill their duty as administrators to exercise independent judgment and check Al Fayed's power – or to ask questions that might have revealed more to them about how he treated women .
“I can 100% see how the management structure and culture was set up to cover this up, hide it from people,” Mr Brilliant says.
Four other former directors anonymously confirmed elements of this photo.
An American citizen, Mr Brilliant was 36 when he joined the firm in August 2000. He was hired to revive Harrods' online business.
He says that shortly before his first business trip to visit Microsoft in Seattle, Al Fayed gave him a brown envelope containing $5,000 (£3,993) in $50 notes.
After the trip, he tried to return the full amount. He said Al Fayed refused, asking him: “Didn't you need entertainment?”
Mr. Brilliant replied that he did not need to: he was too busy to go to the cinema or theater and someone else had paid for dinner.
Getty Images
Al Fayed died last year aged 94
Receiving cash before his business trips – high-value notes in pounds, francs or dollars depending on his destination – continued over the next six months.
Three senior colleagues suggested to Mr Brilliant at the time that Al Fayed was trying to get him to compromise.
Mr Brilliant says they told him: “He was trying to get you to come back and say 'oh, I spent money on drugs or I spent money on frolicking, doing something that I shouldn't have done', and that he would then use this information against you if you ever turn on him.
He adds: “I certainly know people who… have succumbed to temptation. »
Mr Brilliant continued to try to return the money until his family arrived in London and he began looking for accommodation. With Al Fayed's agreement, he invested it in purchasing a property.
Al Fayed had a history of using envelopes of cash as a tool of power and control. He caused a scandal in the 1990s after he paid MPs to ask questions in the House of Commons – and then exposed those who accepted his gifts.
Jon Brillant
Mr Brilliant helped run various Al Fayed businesses, including the Ritz Hotel in Paris.
Mr Brilliant believes he was not immune to Al Fayed's extensive use of wiretapping and surveillance, carried out by the Harrods owner's large team of security guards.
“Even as I tell you this story right now, I get goosebumps and the hairs stand up on the back of my neck realizing that my phones were tapped,” he says.
Mr Brilliant's first suspicions that he might have been wiretapped emerged in 2002, shortly before his dismissal. After a disagreement over Fulham FC's funding, comments from a private telephone conversation with someone in the United States were reported to him in a meeting.
Another former Harrods manager, who wished to remain anonymous, told us he moved into a property owned by Al Fayed when he started at the store and a member of the security team stopped him. warned that there was a wiretap.
The manager says he and his wife would jokingly say “hello” to security guards who might be listening when they woke up.
He noticed that many managers kept a personal mobile phone as well as a work phone because they feared the Harrods phone would be tapped.
Jon Brillant
Mr Brilliant and his family were invited to stay at the Balnagowan estate in Al Fayed, in the north of Scotland.
Mr Brilliant, who returned to the US, said he was “stunned” when he first heard of the BBC investigation.
“I look back and think, 'Should I have seen something? Did I miss something? And I watched it again and again,” he says.
He worked in Al Fayed's “ring of steel” office on the fifth floor of Harrods, protected by two sets of security doors. There was a group of administrative assistants who were all young, blond and attractive – he said.
Mr Brilliant describes them as “obedient”. He explains: “There was this notion of 'do this, jump, how high should I jump?' – and really be in the game. Mohamed needed a lot of people, and they fulfilled their role.
He adds that he now wonders if the women acted this way because of what may have happened.
When asked if he should have done more to protect women, he said he wondered if he could have done so.
“I wasn’t aware of this amount of information that would otherwise suggest there was something deeper going on.”
“Frontal lobotomy”
Mr Brilliant says Harrods executives were pitted against each other and then had to keep a watchful eye on their rivals.
In addition to his senior role, he was given partial oversight of a string of Al Fayed's interests, including Fulham FC and Paris Ritz.
“I was asked to supervise people I had no right to supervise,” says Brilliant. In turn, he noticed that “people were looking over my shoulder.”
Information was treated like “currency” and people were scrambling to share it to “curry favor” with the boss, he said.
This was corroborated by an anonymous director. “There was no trust between the directors,” he told us. “Everyone was on the defensive.”
In his 1997 biography of Al Fayed, journalist Tom Bower described Harrods as a “medieval courthouse” where the survival of rulers depended on “total loyalty” and “a drop of salacious gossip to sow doubt about rivals.”
Senior managers at Harrods have been fired with such regularity that Mr Brilliant said it was a “running joke” in the store.
Managers were fired or resigned so frequently that the Sunday Times began publishing a regular tally, which reached 48 in 2005 – before a legal letter put a stop to it.
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The BBC has attempted to contact as many former Harrods managers as possible.
Many dismissals have resulted in legal action or employment tribunals. Some were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), although Mr Brilliant did not do so.
But some managers lasted more than a decade. And to do this, you had to undergo a “frontal lobotomy,” explained Mr. Brilliant.
Some, he said, were compromised and could not express themselves. For others, “I think we just had to do what we were told to do, do it with a smile… No original thoughts, no desire to challenge the status quo, just the willingness to accept. »
The BBC attempted to contact as many former Harrods managers as possible, but none agreed to give an interview.
Although he had only worked there for 18 months, Mr Brilliant said he wanted to speak to the BBC for two reasons.
“First, if there is anything I can say or do that shows my support for these women who have been horribly treated and traumatized, I want to do whatever I can.
“Secondly, I hope that through my willingness to speak out, others will come forward to speak out themselves. »
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