A file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, who decided there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction.
Mr McArthur added: “I am absolutely horrified by the details of the allegations bravely brought to light through the BBC. My heart goes out to Fayed’s victims, and I do hope very much that they will get the justice and closure that they are seeking.”
After leaving Harrods, Mr McArthur was chief executive of handbag maker Anya Hindmarch for four years, then held a number of roles including chairman of Lulu Guinness, according to his LinkedIn profile. He now lists his occupation as “investor/director/adviser”.
The BBC has contacted a number of former Harrods directors from the time of Fayed’s ownership.
It emerged this week that Harrods is investigating whether current staff were involved in any of the allegations against Fayed, who died last year aged 94.
The store says there is an ongoing internal review which includes “looking at whether any current staff were involved in any of the allegations either directly or indirectly”.
On Monday the chief executive of the department store Selfridges, Andre Maeder, who was a director at Harrods for six years between 1996 and 2002, told the BBC he was “horrified” to learn about the alleged rapes and sexual assaults detailed in the documentary, but said he “never saw or heard anything” about this “abhorrent” behaviour.
Richard Simonin, chief executive from 2003 to 2005, declined to comment when contacted on the social networking site LinkedIn.
Maria Mulla, from the barrister team Justice for Harrods Survivors, told the BBC that she feels the investigation Harrods has launched is neither impartial nor independent.
“The way they looked into those allegations was to undermine them,” she said, citing “extensive correspondence” between the Harrods lawyers and the people she is representing.
She added the scale of the allegations could be “absolutely massive”.
“Last week we represented 37 women, since then we’ve had more than 100 further inquiries through to our team, many women raising serious allegations, from all over the world, and people contacting us wanting to help with documents and evidence.”
Dame Vera Baird, the former victim’s commissioner for England and Wales, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that investigations into the allegations “should have and could have” been done by the police at a much earlier stage.
“One just looks at these young women who had to report against a man with royal connections, clearly a hard-nosed individual, they must have been absolutely terrified, they were humiliated , abused, ravished – dealt with worse than animals.”
“Somewhere along the lines there was an atmosphere of ‘goodness me it’s Al Fayed’ when it should have been ‘look how terrifying it is what they have to face – what have they got to gain if isn’t true, lets get some real evidence’.”
Harrods was bought by the Gulf state of Qatar in 2010. The new owner has admitted that victims were failed, and said it would settle legal claims.
