Another 65 women told the BBC that they were abused by Mohammed Al Fayed accusing him of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape.

Al Fayed, who died last year, used a wider range of abusive tactics and also targeted women employed outside his businesses.

Several of the women spoken to by the BBC claim they were joined by Al Fayed under false pretenses as domestic staff to the billionaire at his Oxted mansion and then sexually exploited by him.

In the first allegation of abuse heard by the BBC, a woman says she was assaulted by Al Fayed in Dubai in 1977, eight years before the Harrods purchase that helped make him a household name in the UK. She describes Al Fayed stalking her and threaten her personally. Women who worked at Harrods say he later resorted to similar intimidation tactics through a team of his security staff.

Of the 65 women who contacted the BBC to share their stories, 37 of them say they had worked at Harrods.

In response to questions from the BBC, Harrods told the UK network: “Since the documentary aired, so far there are 200+ people who are now in the process of settling claims directly with the business.”

The BBC also spoke to women not employed by al-Fayed who say he approached and assaulted them

One woman said she was working in a flower shop in London in the early 1980s when she was spotted by one of Al Fayed’s group. Then, aged 21, she says she was taken to the Paris Ritz for an alleged job interview, where the tycoon sexually assaulted her.

A former BBC make-up artist also said she was sexually assaulted by Al Fayed while working on an episode of the “Clothes Show” in 1989, in which the billionaire was interviewed at Villa Windsor, his Paris home.

Oxted manor: ‘I was held prisoner’

Margot, whose name is not her real name, was 19 when she answered a job advert in The Lady magazine in 1985 for a nanny and governess position in Surrey. She submitted her application and a photograph as requested. Having worked as a nanny in the past, she recalls finding it odd that she was asked at the end of the interview “if I had a boyfriend or if I had ever had a boyfriend”.

“I said no… My interviewer seemed relieved about it,” he told the BBC.

Once offered the job, she was told the role was with Al Fayed and his family, at their mansion on Barrow Green Court in Oxted. Her mother encouraged her to go on trial for a month.

“I remember being driven in a chauffeured limousine through the incredibly impressive entrance gates to Barrow Green Court and up the long driveway to a huge brick house,” he says.

Inside, Margot says she was shown a small dimly lit room – which had a single bed, a desk and an internal phone. She soon learned to fear the sound of knocking because Al Fayed was calling her. Waiting to see the children, he finally found him alone. That’s when he says that the repeated sexual assaults began.

“The work just wasn’t there. He didn’t need a babysitter. He didn’t want a nanny,” she told the BBC.

For five days, Margot says she only saw the children twice and was not allowed to interact with them. Instead, every time she was asked by Al Fayed, she says she was sexually assaulted by him – in different locations on the estate, including the indoor pool, the gardens and the office.

She felt trapped. “Once you’re in the house, you can’t get out. You have to go down a long way and through big gates at the bottom. He has to give permission for the floodgates to open,” Margot told the BBC.

One morning, says Al Fayed, he entered her room, went to her bedpushed her against the wall and raped her. After leaving her room, she immediately packed her things and told Al Fayed later that day that she wanted to leave and did not understand why he was there. But he declined and told her the job description would “become much clearer over time.”

He told her to give him another 24 hours, that he would buy her a house and give her more money. He says he got very angry when she told him again that she wanted out.

Eventually, she said, he let her go, but as she was leaving a member of staff said “not to say anything about my time here or my life would become very difficult”.

The BBC has also heard stories from other women who say they were recruited as nannies, chefs and maids who say they were abused in his private residences. They also say that when they arrived the jobs seemed non-existent and they believe they were recruited under false pretenses.