A man who used an underground chamber at his Highland home to abuse vulnerable women has been given the first worldwide travel ban in Scottish legal history.
Kevin Booth recruited women from the UK and abroad to come to Lochdhu Lodge in Altnabreac, Caithness, and had so-called “punishment beatings” administered on them.
Wick Sheriff Court heard that the lodge is in a “remote location” that can’t be accessed by public transport, while previous coverage claimed it was at the end of a 14-mile private road.
The court also heard that within a lodge building, there is a trapdoor that gives access to an underground chamber area with a 60-metre-long curved concrete tunnel. The chamber contains an empty coffin, “life-sized Egyptian figures, and a metal bench”.
In a written judgement published by the court on Tuesday, Sheriff Neil Wilson wrote about how Booth abused the women and filmed the attacks.
Booth’s actions at the lodge prompted Iain Livingston, the chief constable of Police Scotland, to raise a civil action against Booth at Wick Sheriff Court.
Lawyers for the police asked Sheriff Wilson to pass a Trafficking and Exploitation Order under terms of section 26 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 for a period of five years.
They told the court that between 1998 and December 2022, Booth engaged in a “consistent course of conduct of recruiting women, both from the United Kingdom and abroad” for the purposes of “isolating them, either at Lochdhu Lodge… far from their homes, and thereafter submitting them to violent beatings and forcing them, through threats of violence, to perform sexual acts on him”.
The lawyers told the court that the police could not monitor Booth when he travelled outside the United Kingdom. They argued that the best way to minimise the risk he posed to women was to ban him from travelling outside Britain.
Sheriff Wilson agreed with the submissions and passed such an order – the first to be granted in Scottish legal history.
In addition to the foreign travel ban, Booth must notify police 14 days before hiring any female employee.
Police must be notified in advance of any female visitors to his property. Officers may conduct unannounced welfare checks at his properties.
He cannot sponsor visas for anyone other than immediate family members without police approval and must surrender all passports.
The judgement also tells of how police searched Booth’s home in connection with allegations made about his conduct in March 2019. He appeared in private in connection with these allegations in December 2019 but the procurator fiscal discontinued these proceedings in March 2021.
In July 2023, a former employee – named only as Ms J – made a complaint to Police Scotland about the defender’s “conduct” to her when she was employed by him at the lodge between June and December 2022.
The judgement tells of how Booth pressured her into providing him with “sexual services”.
The judgement also tells how Booth was investigated for raping a woman in “his employ” in the Republic of Ireland and subsequently sought to apply financial pressure on the complainer to withdraw her allegation.
Sheriff Wilson also wrote of how Booth made reference in Skype chats to him sponsoring the complainer to travel from Botswana to the Republic of Ireland, “and of her not knowing that, once there, he planned to whip her”.
Trafficking and exploitation: ‘Women paid to submit to beatings’
During their investigations, police gathered evidence which was presented in the civil action.
The court heard how the police recovered Skype messages which contained details of Booth arranging travel, visas, passports, payment and accommodation for “many women, with a view to meeting them at various locations abroad”.
Sheriff Wilson wrote: “Some of these messages explicitly mentioned payment for submitting to beatings. There were also letters, both hard copy found at the defender’s home and electronic copies recovered from his devices, between the defender and various immigration authorities arranging visas for many women and seeking to sponsor their travel.
“The contract documents, again recovered from the defender’s possession, contain details of ‘agreements’ between the defender and various women, stating their obligation to submit to beatings as a term of their employment by the defender.”
Police also obtained six witness statements during their investigations into Booth’s conduct at the lodge.
Sheriff Wilson said the statements describe “in detail” employing the witnesses at Lochdhu Lodge and “thereafter subjecting them to beatings, or threatening to do so.
Detective Sergeant Christopher Hughes gave evidence to civil action about Booth’s activities at the lodge.
Sheriff Wilson wrote: “DS Hughes’ evidence was presented to the court as, in effect, expert evidence on the subject of trafficking and exploitation, given his experience and his day-to-day involvement in the investigation of alleged instances of human trafficking in Scotland.
“He confirmed that he was directly involved in the investigation into the defender, and further that applications for a TERO were rare, and Kevin Booth’s was the first one to be contested.
“DS Hughes stated that he had reviewed the video and documentary evidence in the case, in particular the Skype messages recovered from the defender’s electronic devices, and was of the view that Mr Booth regularly travelled abroad, where he recruits economically vulnerable women from poor countries, arranges and pays for them to travel to a variety of countries, in particular South Africa, Dubai, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, where, once isolated and within his control, he subjects them to violent beatings.
“In his evidence, DS Hughes was taken through a considerable volume of Skype messages, the general theme of which could be summarised as outlining the defender organising travel, visas and payment for women, and subsequently arranging to meet and abuse them.
“DS Hughes characterised this course of conduct as trafficking and exploitation.”
‘Graphic video footage’
The evidence gathered by police prompted them to launch the civil action at Wick Sheriff Court.
Sheriff Wilson wrote: “It was not a matter of dispute that this action was the first of its kind.
“Given the evidence presented by the pursuer, I had no difficulty coming to the conclusion that the defender has, consistently over many years, been engaged in a course of conduct involving the targeting of financially vulnerable women whom he subsequently coerces into submitting to abuse, and in doing so committed acts of human trafficking and exploitation.
“I would go so far as to describe the evidence as overwhelming, and that the totality of the evidence presented by the pursuer, in the form of videos, Skype messages, documents and witness statements allows no other conclusion.
“The evidence of Mr Booth’s egregious conduct, as presented in court, was at times, utterly harrowing.
“The graphic video footage, combined with the context and background provided by supporting documentary evidence in various forms, was redolent of a level of cruelty and depravity which, whilst extreme, one can only hope is rare.
“It might be thought that the use of such value-laden language in a legal judgment is inappropriate.
“I would beg to differ, and make no apologies for including it.
“This judgment may be primarily concerned with the legal issues before the court, but it is important not to lose sight of the human suffering giving rise to this case.”
It is not the first time Booth – once described as a millionaire racing tipster – has came to attention of the authorities.
He was charged with assaulting children in his care at a school in 1991 by caning and whipping them.
He left the UK prior to his trial in an “attempt to evade justice” and was later given a three-month suspended jail term.
In 2002, he was convicted after trial at Bradford Crown Court of indecently assaulting his Brazilian au pair, then in and given a two-year jail term.
Sheriff Wilson heard how, in this case, Booth threatened the woman with a “riding whip”.
The court also heard how, after leaving university, he went to teach in Botswana, where he “caned many students and enjoyed doing so”.
Police Scotland became aware of Booth’s activities and started investigating him. They seized hundreds of videos from Booth’s property of women being assaulted by him.
The court saw 13 videos of Booth’s conduct.
Sheriff Wilson wrote: “A consistent feature of these assaults is that the defender takes pleasure in assaulting his victims, justifies them as ‘punishment beatings’ for minor real or imagined infringements, takes great care in inspecting and filming the injuries inflicted, and that in counting the set number of blows to be administered threatens to start again if the victim struggles or resists in any way.
“That, on some occasions, the victims are restrained by handcuffs or similar.
“On other occasions, the defender uses coercion by way of threats to withhold payment of wages to force his victims to submit to the assaults.
“That at least two of the beatings are at least two of the beatings are at Lochdhu Lodge.”
Sheriff Wilson then allowed the order to be passed.
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