Mohamed Al-Fayed's abuse survivors temper expectations ahead of their first meeting with UK PM Starmer

The survivors of Mohamed Al Fayed's abuse have waited a long time for a meeting with the Prime Minister. Now that it is happening, at least one of them is managing what she expects to get from it.

Sarah Spong, an American survivor from South Carolina who has been among the most visible advocates for a public inquiry into Al Fayed's abuse and the institutions that enabled it, said she would temper her expectations ahead of the meeting with Keir Starmer. She said sex abuse survivors had always been the victims of the whims of politicians. The meeting, she added, was better than silence, but a meeting was not a statutory inquiry.

The context surrounding the meeting makes her caution understandable. Al Fayed died in August 2023 aged 94 having never been charged with any offence. By March 2026, the Metropolitan Police's investigation into his conduct and those who enabled it had grown to 154 complainants, with allegations spanning rape, sexual assault, sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Four suspects, believed to be individuals from Al Fayed's network at Harrods and elsewhere, have been interviewed under caution for aiding and abetting rape, assisting the commission of sexual offences and human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct has opened an investigation into five current and former Metropolitan Police officers over their handling of Al Fayed abuse claims before his death. The investigation follows the revelation that 21 women had brought claims to police and that Al Fayed was never charged, despite the Crown Prosecution Service having reviewed four cases against him, including one allegation involving a 15-year-old girl at Harrods in 2009, when Keir Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions.

Starmer has said the Al Fayed allegations never crossed his desk during his time at the CPS. Survivors have noted the contrast between his public sympathy for Jeffrey Epstein survivors and his relative silence on the Al Fayed investigation, and have questioned whether the institutions that protected a wealthy, politically connected man are being held to adequate account.

Jess Phillips, who had pushed for survivors to have a meeting with the government during her time as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding, resigned from government in protest of Starmer's leadership in May 2026. Her departure was described by Spong as a shame but potentially a catalyst that helped spark the meeting finally taking place.

Spong and other survivors have consistently demanded a statutory public inquiry with powers to compel witnesses to give evidence under oath, arguing that only that kind of process can establish the full scale of how Al Fayed's abuse was enabled across decades and whether Harrods, the police, the CPS and other institutions systematically failed the women who came forward.