Joanna Brittan's 1990 Trafficking Claim Enters Modern Slavery Review as Met Widens Al Fayed Probe
Updated
Updated · BBC.com · May 28
Joanna Brittan's 1990 Trafficking Claim Enters Modern Slavery Review as Met Widens Al Fayed Probe
1 articles · Updated · BBC.com · May 28
Joanna Brittan has been referred to the National Referral Mechanism, putting her allegations of rape and trafficking by Ahmed Obaidly and Mohamed Al Fayed under modern slavery review nearly a decade after she first went to police.
Brittan says Obaidly raped her three times in 1990, then took her to meet Al Fayed at Harrods before she was driven to his Surrey estate, where she alleges threats, coercion and possible drugging.
The Metropolitan Police says it has reinterviewed Brittan and is continuing a live investigation into people who may have facilitated or enabled Al Fayed's offending, after no further action was taken in 2017.
At least four other women have also been referred to the NRM, and one woman said she identified Obaidly from a photo after reporting a 1989 assault involving Al Fayed's brother Salah.
With Obaidly dead since 2015 and Al Fayed since 2023, survivors, advocates and Brittan's MP are pressing police to examine whether a wider network enabled abuse in the UK and abroad.
With Al Fayed dead, will his alleged 'trafficking factory' of enablers finally be exposed and prosecuted?
Is the Al Fayed case Britain's Epstein scandal, spanning from Harrods to Paris?