If Princess Diana had heard even a whisper of the heinous allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed, the man exposed as a serial sexual abuser by the recent BBC documentary Al Fayed: Predator At Harrods, I truly believe she would still be alive today.
The documentary, which forensically investigated multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault by the Harrods boss on female employees dating back to the 1980s, revealed him to be a monster who used his power and influence to prey on vulnerable young women and girls.
It is inconceivable that Diana would have decided to date Dodi, Al Fayed’s son, if she had known what kind of man his father was and the reputational damage that would have caused.
She would never have done anything to harm the Royal Family, if only for the sake of her sons William, who was then second in line to the throne, and Harry, the now famous leftover.
She would not have accepted Al Fayed’s invitation to spend the holidays at his French villa with his children in the early summer of 1997, the place where she had that fateful first meeting with Dodi, which resulted in what amounted to a three-month holiday romance.
The Egyptian, who began his working life as a penniless soft drink seller on the streets of his native Cairo, was determined to gain acceptance and respectability in Britain.
And he wouldn’t have died in a high-speed car accident in a Parisian tunnel.
The sinister puppet master who engineered this chain of events was, of course, Mohamed Al Fayed.
Desperate to integrate himself and his family into royal circles, he pressured his son to court the princess even though he was already engaged to be married.
Meanwhile, Diana was recovering from her failed romance with the love of her life, heart surgeon Hasnat Khan.
According to friends at the time, the motivation behind Diana’s decision to parade the Jonikal (Al Fayed’s 208ft, £13m superyacht) before the world’s cameras was simple: “Look what you’re missing, Hasnat.”
As for those iconic images of her sitting on the diving board of the Jonikal in a turquoise swimsuit, they were the result of a tip-off to the paparazzi by the princess’s camp, as were the images of her and Dodi kissing and hugging on board the yacht.
The pictures were published around the world and created exactly the echo she wanted. But there was never any possibility of engagement, as Al Fayed falsely boasted, nor was she pregnant with Dodi’s child, as he also claimed.
Photographs of Diana on the Jonikal (Al Fayed’s 208ft, £13m superyacht) were published around the world and created exactly the repercussions she had intended.
Her best friend Rosa Monckton, who spoke to Diana four days before she died, revealed that the princess told her she had enjoyed herself, had made her point and was desperate to get home to her children.
He had planned to cut his trip short at the Ritz Paris, Al Fayed’s luxury hotel in the French capital, from where he made his final, fateful journey.
In the end, however, Diana was not the master of her own destiny, but merely a pawn in Al Fayed’s twisted chess game of social advancement.
The Egyptian, who began his working life as a penniless soft drink seller on the streets of his native Cairo, was determined to win acceptance and respectability in Britain and set about achieving it with all the concentration of a heat-guided missile.
But it was a mission doomed from the start. The establishment regarded him as a swindler, and even the purchase of his only major asset, Harrods, was plagued by scandal.
Perhaps the fact that the Home Office twice refused to grant him a British passport on the grounds that he had failed the “good behaviour” test following his “cash for questions” payments to MPs should have been a warning.
But only now have we discovered the true depths of Al Fayed’s depravity.
Diana pictured on CCTV with Dodi Fayed in the lift of the Ritz hotel during her final hours
It could all have been very different. The tycoon who exploited Diana’s innocence with such tragic consequences had been under police investigation for decades on allegations of serial abuse of his female employees.
But the billionaire successfully avoided prosecution by hiring groups of powerful lawyers who issued chilling threats of legal action.
Take Vanity Fair. When, in 1995, two years before Diana died and two years before she met Dodi, the US-based magazine commissioned an article intended to expose Al Fayed’s conduct, he responded with a devastating libel suit, claiming that he had been the victim of malicious accusations by disgruntled former employees and insisting that all allegations relating to his status as a sexual predator be removed.
Forced to submit, Vanity Fair complied and all the evidence it had gathered against him was locked away, and a watered-down version of the article was published.
In the following years, the Crown Prosecution Service twice considered prosecuting Al Fayed and twice fell short.
Fast forward to today, 27 years after Diana’s death. As we have seen, it was only this month that we discovered the horrific and industrial scale of al-Fayed’s crimes.
Everyone who participated in the horrendous establishment dithering that allowed this evil man to continue his incredibly sordid activities should be ashamed. Some, like Al Fayed, are dead, but I truly hope that his other accomplices in the abuses, who are now being identified and shamed, are held to account.
BBC journalists investigating Al Fayed’s predatory record have gathered testimony from more than 20 women who said they were abused by him, five of whom said they were raped. Since the BBC documentary aired last Thursday, more than 150 former Harrods employees have given evidence.
Had Diana known any of this, she would never have gone to Al Fayed’s Mediterranean villa and embarked on the revenge adventure that ultimately led to her death.
