Bianca Gascoigne 'trying not to cry' as she recalls ordeal with Al-Fayed

TV star Bianca Gascoigne has bravely recounted one of the "worst ordeals" of her life as she detailed the alleged abuse by Mohamed Al Fayed on ITV's This Morning.

The 37-year-old, who is the adopted daughter of football legend Paul Gascoigne, claimed she was groomed by the former Harrods owner when she was just 16.

In a heart-wrenching interview with hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley, Bianca revealed that her role at the prestigious department store, which saw her rise to become a fashion buyer, forced her into frequent contact with Al Fayed.

Bianca spoke openly about the harrowing experiences she endured, saying: "First of all it very much started with grooming, he always wanted to be there for me, very supportive. He told me I was doing very good, unfortunately, he would bring up my dad's illness.

"He'd use that because he must of thought I was quite vulnerable. So he would say he would be the father figure."

Describing the escalation of Al Fayed's behaviour, she alleged: "Shortly after it would be like the touching and then obviously leaning in for a kiss," and disclosed the disturbing details: "He put his tongue down my mouth and to be honest how I dealt with it was pretty much like an out-of-body experience," reports .

The star revealed that the distressing experiences left her feeling "dirty" and "scared" to come forward, struggling to hold back tears. She explained her silence at the time by saying: "There's a lot of aspects to it and I just felt very very ashamed. I felt dirty, I just kind of pretended that it wasn't happening. I just put it in a box and just moved on and tried to deal with it."

Moreover, Bianca disclosed that her mother grew suspicious when Al Fayed began offering to buy extravagant gifts.

Upon hearing Bianca's account, Ben also shared a statement from Harrods, stating: "So Harrods has been in touch and said 'We are absolutely appalled by the allegations of abuse that have been perpetrated by Mohamed Al-Fayed.We sincerely apologise, it's been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible for the lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved.

"'While we cannot undo the past, we are determined to do the right thing as an organisation driven by the values we hold today to ensure such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.'"

Mohamed Al-Fayed, the Egyptian entrepreneur who died last year at 94, faced accusations of sexual misconduct from multiple women who were employed by him. For a long time, many of these women felt powerless to report their ordeals.

This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.