The former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed has been accused of raping five women and sexually abusing at least 15 others when they worked at the luxury department store, according to a BBC investigation.

More than 20 women, all of whom were Fayed’s former employees, told a BBC documentary they had been sexually assaulted by him and that Harrods had covered up the abuse.

The store’s current owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations and apologised to the victims.

Law firms in the UK and the US said on Thursday they were investigating bringing legal claims over allegations including trafficking, rape and serious sexual assault.

Leigh Day, working with the American firm Motley Rice, represents a woman who alleges she was subjected to trafficking, rape and abuse. She and her lawyers said they believed there could be hundreds more survivors of similar abuse perpetrated when they worked for Harrods between 1985 and 2010.

Lawyers are also investigating whether possible claims could be made against the Metropolitan police by people who say they reported their alleged abuse but insufficient action was taken.

Fayed, who sold Harrods in 2010, died last year aged 94. His obituary in the Guardian noted there had been repeated allegations of sexual harassment of female staff during his lifetime.

In 2009, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge Fayed over the claim he had sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl at the store. In 2013, he was interviewed by police after a woman alleged he had sexually attacked her at his Park Lane apartment after a job interview. The police reopened the case in 2015 but took no further action. Fayed always denied the allegations.

The alleged victims give detailed accounts of the abuse, including some on camera, in the new documentary, Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods. It alleges the abuse took place in London, Paris, Saint-Tropez and Abu Dhabi.

One woman told the BBC she was raped as a teenager in Fayed’s Park Lane apartment. “Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass,” she told the BBC.

Three other women told the BBC they had also been raped by him in the apartment. A fifth woman, named only as Gemma, said on camera that Fayed had raped her at his Villa Windsor apartment in Paris and then made her wash herself with disinfectant.

She told the programme: “Obviously he wanted me to erase any trace of him being anywhere near me.”

The documentary makers say the women came forward after seeing Fayed sympathetically portrayed in the Netflix series The Crown. The episodes in question covered Diana, Princess of Wales’s relationship with Fayed’s son Dodi, and their deaths in a car crash in 1997.

One woman, whom the BBC names only as Sophia, says Fayed tried to rape her more than once when she was a personal assistant to him from 1988 to 1991. Speaking of Fayed’s portrayal in The Crown, she told the BBC: “People shouldn’t remember him like that.”

Bruce Drummond, a barrister representing several of the women, told the BBC: “The spider’s web of corruption and abuse at this company was unbelievable and very dark.”

In a statement, Harrods said: “We are utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed Al Fayed. These were the actions of an individual who was intent on abusing his power wherever he operated and we condemn them in the strongest terms. We also acknowledge that during this time as a business we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologise.

“The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010; it is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.

“This is why, since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees.

“While we cannot undo the past, we have been determined to do the right thing as an organisation, driven by the values we hold today, while ensuring that such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.”