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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mumma Mea podcast. Mumma Mea acknowledges

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Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast

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Speaker 1: is recorded on.

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Speaker 2: Hey, I'm Taylor Straano. This is Mumma MIA's twice daily

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Speaker 2: news podcast, The Quickie. For decades, Harrod's was known as

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Speaker 2: the world's most famous department store, but behind its luxurious facade,

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Speaker 2: hundreds of women say a dark secret was hiding in

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Speaker 2: plain sight. Today we investigate the disturbing allegations against the

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Speaker 2: man who once owned it all. But first, here's Clare Murphy.

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Speaker 2: We're the latest from the Quickie newsroom for Wednesday, March twelve.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Taylor. With rain easing in flood hit areas of

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Speaker 1: southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales, residents are returning

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Speaker 1: home to clean up and salvage what they can from

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Speaker 1: the floodwater. Power is still cut off for around eighty

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Speaker 1: five thousand homes and dozens of warnings remain in place

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Speaker 1: across the region, with some areas still cut off as

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Speaker 1: recovery efforts begin in those suburbs and towns where the

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Speaker 1: water has subsided. The storm has also exposed an issue

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Speaker 1: in Lismore, an area that has been hit by repeat

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Speaker 1: flooding in recent years. The government has brought back some

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Speaker 1: homes that were built on the floodplaine, but in the

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Speaker 1: year since the previous event, rough sleepers have moved in

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Speaker 1: New South Wales. Premier Chris Minn says they were mostly

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Speaker 1: overseas visitors, tourists and backpackers, but those who live there

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Speaker 1: claim they're actually the people at the forefront of the

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Speaker 1: nation's housing crisis and have no intention of leaving. As

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Speaker 1: Australia waits to hear when we'll finally go to the

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Speaker 1: polls for the federal election, Labour has taken a slim

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Speaker 1: lead over the Coalition in the latest polling. The Roy

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Speaker 1: Morgan Pole, which asked Australians their preferences during the last

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Speaker 1: week of February, puts Labour on fifty one point five

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Speaker 1: percent compared to the coalition's forty eight point five two

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Speaker 1: party preferred a two point rise for the Albanese government

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Speaker 1: and a two point drop for the Liberal National Coalition.

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Speaker 1: The Prime Minister said he would not be picking April

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Speaker 1: twelve for us to cast our votes, focusing instead on

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Speaker 1: ex tropical cyclone Outflas and its aftermath The federal budget

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Speaker 1: will now go ahead on March twenty five, with the

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Speaker 1: election date expected to be called after that. Wall Street

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Speaker 1: has taken a dive with US President Donald Trump's tariff

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Speaker 1: war escalating. Trump, who placed a twenty five percent taroff

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Speaker 1: on all steel and aluminium products coming in from Canada,

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Speaker 1: doubled that to fifty percent after Canada retaliated with a

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Speaker 1: twenty five percent tariff on energy it provides to several

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Speaker 1: US states. Global markets have been in free fall since

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Speaker 1: the fighting began, Analysts warning this mite fan inflationary pressures

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Speaker 1: and stall economic growth. Tesla scheres, which had dropped a

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Speaker 1: massive fifteen percent. The dive attributed to several factors, one

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Speaker 1: being backlashed from customers who are unhappy with Tesla boss

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk's new political role in the Trump administration and

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Speaker 1: him performing a Nazi salute during a Trump rally did

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Speaker 1: manage to claw back almost one percent of that overnight.

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Speaker 1: One of the first Australians to be diagnosed with HIV

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Speaker 1: has passed away, Remembered for his tire life commitment to

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Speaker 1: helping treat the virus. David Poulson was infected during the

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Speaker 1: height of the HIV crisis in the nineteen eighties when

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Speaker 1: he was just twenty nine. Since then, he's participated in

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Speaker 1: twenty eight clinical trials to help find treatments and cures

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Speaker 1: for the virus, the most undertaken by a person living

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Speaker 1: with the illness in the world. He also founded Qutopia,

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Speaker 1: Sydney's Queer Museum, which is now the world's largest center

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Speaker 1: for queer history and culture and includes exhibits on the

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Speaker 1: HIV journey in Australia. David was seventy.

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Speaker 2: That's what's happening in the world today. Next. Muhammed al

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Speaker 2: Fayed ran Harrod's, the upmarket London department store for twenty

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Speaker 2: five years, but now nearly two years on from his death,

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Speaker 2: many of those who worked for him have revealed that

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Speaker 2: it was a twenty five year reign of terror with

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Speaker 2: accusations of sexual assault. For many of us, our only

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Speaker 2: knowledge of Muhammed al Fayed was that he was the

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Speaker 2: father of Dodi al Fayed, the man who was dating

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Speaker 2: the late Princess Diana and who was with her when

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Speaker 2: they both died in a car accident in the tunnel

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Speaker 2: in Paris. While being chased by the paparazzi. He was

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Speaker 2: featured in a season of the popular TV series The Crown,

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Speaker 2: depicted as an entrepreneur, an eccentric, wealthy man obsessed with

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Speaker 2: becoming a part of London's elite society.

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Speaker 3: With your head, they would become the Thrier thing, a

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Speaker 3: British gentleman.

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Speaker 2: But in recent months, shocking allegations have surfaced against the

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Speaker 2: late Muhammad al Fayed, the former owner of the iconic

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Speaker 2: London department store Harod's. Dozens of women have come forward

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Speaker 2: accusing him of sexual assault and rape during his tenure

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Speaker 2: as the head of the store from nineteen eighty five

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Speaker 2: to twenty ten. The disturbing claims led to a reevaluation

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Speaker 2: of Alphayed's legacy, raising questions about the culture of silence

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Speaker 2: and fear that allowed such abuse to persist. The accusations

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Speaker 2: against al Fayed were first highlighted in a BBC documentary

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Speaker 2: titled alph Predator at Harod's. It revealed that twenty women

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Speaker 2: alleged he had assaulted them at various locations including Harod's,

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Speaker 2: Fulham f C and the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Since then,

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Speaker 2: the number of individuals coming forward has grown significantly, with

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Speaker 2: lawyers now in contact with over four hundred people who

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Speaker 2: either claimed to have been a victim of al Fayed

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Speaker 2: or who witnessed his behavior. But the allegations of abuse

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Speaker 2: extend beyond al Fayed himself. In a shocking development, his

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Speaker 2: brother Ali Fayed, has also been accused of sexual assault

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Speaker 2: by three former Harod's employees. These women claim the assaults

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Speaker 2: took place in various locations including London, Scotland, Switzerland, and

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Speaker 2: the United States, during the period where the department store

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Speaker 2: was owned by the brothers. This follows earlier accusations against

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Speaker 2: another brother, the late Salafayed, who was accused of assaulting

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Speaker 2: three women during the period where he jointly owned the

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Speaker 2: store with Muhammed. One woman claims she was raped after

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Speaker 2: being rugged by Salafayed. One of the accusers, identified as Natcha,

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Speaker 2: described Muhammed al Fayed as extremely manipulative, claiming that he

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Speaker 2: targeted vulnerable individuals, like those who were struggling financially or

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Speaker 2: who didn't have the support of their parents or extended family.

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Speaker 2: This pattern of exploitation is echoed by many other women

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Speaker 2: who've since spoken out. In a recent episode of sixty Minutes,

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Speaker 2: Australia journalist Tara Brown and producer and Worthington delved into

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Speaker 2: the harrowing stories of women who were targeted and attacked

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Speaker 2: by al Fayed. The program highlighted the fear and isolation

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Speaker 2: that characterized the work environment under his leadership, As and

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Speaker 2: Worthington noted, most of these women have been silent for decades.

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Speaker 2: Many of them left feeling like what they experienced was

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Speaker 2: only happening to them.

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Speaker 3: The fact that they've started to come together, that courage

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Speaker 3: that they've seen in other women has been contagious, and

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Speaker 3: coming together has given them that strength to speak out.

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Speaker 2: Finally, the women interviewed by Sixty Minutes described a culture

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Speaker 2: of surveillance and control where phones and apartments were allegedly

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Speaker 2: bugged and employees were discouraged from speaking to each other.

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Speaker 2: This created an environment where victims felt trapped, unable to speak,

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Speaker 2: and in some cases, unable to escape.

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Speaker 3: He sent security team to pick me up. He had

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Speaker 3: to stop to phone me and tell me that I'd

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Speaker 3: lost my mind and that I needed to come back

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Speaker 3: for medical help. I ended up having to move house

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Speaker 3: and change my phone number and sell my car just

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Speaker 3: to get rid of him.

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Speaker 2: Australian woman Anne Marie Crook, who was just twenty one,

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Speaker 2: when she moved from Canberra to London. Revealed how it

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Speaker 2: seemed like a dream job opportunity turned into a nightmare,

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Speaker 2: from working on the shop floor to being scouted by

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Speaker 2: al Fayed and then promote it to his personal assistant.

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Speaker 2: The grooming process allegedly began with what was presented as

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Speaker 2: a workplace perk, a medical examination, but as Anne Marie

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Speaker 2: and another Australian woman, Kim would later discover, these weren't

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Speaker 2: routine checks at all. It was an office job.

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Speaker 3: They didn't need to know my STD profile, they didn't

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Speaker 3: need to do a hormone check, they didn't need to

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Speaker 3: do a swab.

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Speaker 2: That had absolutely nothing to do with what I was

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Speaker 2: doing on a daily basis. The pattern was disturbingly consistent.

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Speaker 2: Women were offered career advancement, money and presence, but the

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Speaker 2: situation would quickly escalate to alleged assault. Kim claimed that

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Speaker 2: she was attacked up to two to three times a

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Speaker 2: week in Alphayed's office. What's particularly shocking is the scale

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Speaker 2: of these allegations. Barrista Maria Muller, representing the Justice for

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Speaker 2: Harod's survivor's legal team, is currently working with more than

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Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty survivors with alleged abuse spanning from

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Speaker 2: the late eighties to just past twenty ten.

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Speaker 3: Muhammad al Fayed was one of the most powerful men

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Speaker 3: in the world and and what people really need to

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Speaker 3: know is that whatever Muhammad al Fayed wanted, he got.

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Speaker 2: But what about the state of Harod's now? The current

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Speaker 2: owner have issued an apology, stating that they're deeply shocked

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Speaker 2: by the allegations and acknowledging that the store had failed

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Speaker 2: its employees during al Fayed's tenure. But for many survivors,

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Speaker 2: this acknowledgment comes far too late. The trauma they endured

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Speaker 2: behind the glamorous facade of one of London's most famous

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Speaker 2: department stores has left lasting scars. Their stories serve as

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Speaker 2: a stark reminder of how wealth and power can be

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Speaker 2: wielded to enable decades of abuse. The London Metropolitan Police

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Speaker 2: are now under pressure to investigate cases that were previously dismissed.

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Speaker 2: They're reportedly looking into twenty one cases that were reported

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Speaker 2: before al Fayed's death, and are now investigating five individuals

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Speaker 2: who may have enabled his abuse. This is a developing

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Speaker 2: story and were sure to bring you more as it unfolds.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for taking the time to feed your mind with

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Speaker 2: us today. The quickie is produced by me Taylor Strano,

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Speaker 2: and Clare Murphy, with audio production by Leu Hill

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Speaker 3: Pat Pat the doct