Millionaire fails to overturn worldwide travel ban after torturing women at Scottish lodge

A millionaire who used an underground chamber at his remote Highland home to abuse vulnerable women has failed to overturn a ban prohibiting him from travelling around the world.

Kevin Booth recruited woman from the UK and abroad to come to Lochdhu Lodge in Altnabreac, Caithness and have so called “punishment beatings” administered to them.

Wick Sheriff Court heard how the lodge is in a “remote location” which can’t be accessed by public transport. Previous coverage of the lodge states that it’s at the end of a 14 mile long private road.

The court also heard that within a building at the lodge, there is a trapdoor which 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 last year, 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”

Sheriff Wilson agreed and passed a five year ban prohibiting him from travelling outside the United Kingdom.

However, lawyers for Booth believed that Sheriff Wilson was mistaken to impose the order prohibiting foreign travel.

His lawyers told the Sheriff Appeal Court in Edinburgh that their colleague in Wick hadn’t followed legal guidelines in passing the order.

They told Sheriff Principal Gillian Wade KC, Sheriff Principal Andrew Miller and appeal sheriff Iain Fleming that their colleague in Wick needed to state the offence that Booth was in danger of committing.

Advocate Andrew Webster KC said that Sheriff Wilson then needed to state why the order was needed to prevent Mr Booth from committing the offence.

Mr Webster argued that Sheriff Wilson didn’t do this and that this made the order flawed and unlawful.

However, in a written judgment issued by the court on Tuesday, the appeal sheriffs rejected the arguments made to them by Mr Webster.

Sheriff Principal Miller, who delivered the opinion of the court, concluded their colleague acted correctly.

He added: “We are satisfied that findings in fact 10 and 12 together with the conclusions that the appellant had 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’ provides the reasonable reader with the requisite degree of specification of the offence which the appellant was considered to be at risk of committing.

“Accordingly, we find it unnecessary to exercise the power which the court has in terms of section 111(1)(a)(iii) of the Courts Reform (Scotland) 2014 to vary the sheriff’s interlocutor of February 20, 2025.

“Ground 1, therefore, falls to be refused.”

Sheriff Wilson’s judgment tells of the police told his court couldn’t monitor Booth when he travelled outside of the United Kingdom. They argued that the best way to minimise the risk he posed to females was to ban him from travelling outside of Britain.

Sheriff Wilson agreed with the submissions and passed such an order – the first to be granted in Scottish legal history.

As well as 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.

Sheriff Wilson wrote: “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 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 and given a two-year jail term.

He was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for two years in December 2025 and ordered to pay a woman £2,000 compensation after being convicted of indecent communication.

Wick Sheriff Court heard how Booth instructed a woman to give him a massage once a week, and asked her about her previous sexual relationships and whether she knew how to spank.

Sentencing Booth, Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald said Booth had held “a position of power” over an employee living in his “extremely isolated” home miles away from her family.

The 66-year-old was also placed under supervision by social work for two years and was told he’d have to complete a programme designed to rehabilitate sex offenders.

Police Scotland became aware of Booth’s activities and started investigating him in 2019. They seized hundreds of videos from Booth’s property of women being assaulted by him.

The court saw 13 videos of Booth’s conduct.

In the judgement published on Tuesday, Sheriff Principal Miller added: “For the foregoing reasons, we refuse the appeal and adhere to the sheriff’s interlocutor.”