A man who subjected vulnerable women to ‘punishment beatings’ in an underground chamber below a remote Highland lodge has been hit with the first worldwide travel ban.
Kevin Booth recruited women from across the world to work at the isolated Lochdu Lodge in Caithness, where he said to have subjected them to harrowing ‘abuse’.
A written judgement published by Wick Sheriff Court stated that an underground chamber containing ‘an empty coffin, life-size ancient Egyptian figures and a metal bench’ lay underneath the lodge, accessible via a trapdoor.
Here, the judgement states, Booth filmed himself beating women with implements including ‘canes, wooden brushes, riding crops and belts’.
Booth’s house was searched by police in March 2019, but proceedings against him were discontinued in March 2021.
This led to former Police Scotland Chief Constable Iain Livingstone to raise a civil action against Booth. He asked Wick Sheriff Court to pass a Trafficking and Exploitation Order for a period of five years.
Yesterday, Sheriff Neil Wilson granted the order, which requires Booth to surrender his passport to prevent him travelling abroad.
He must also inform police 14 days before hiring any female employees.
A sheriff’s written judgement revealed the existence of an underground chamber beneath Lochdu lodge, containing an empty coffin and Egyptian statues
Officers must also be notified in advance of any female visitors to his home.
Police Scotland 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 ‘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’s judgement revealed that ‘within a building forming part of the curtilage of Lochdhu Lodge is an underground “chamber” area, accessed via a trapdoor and a 60-metre-long curved concrete tunnel’.
It added: ‘The defender restrains women to the metal bench within the Lochdhu Lodge chamber using handcuffs for the purposes of whipping them.
‘These assaults are videoed by the defender…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.’
The judgement describes one video which showed a woman handcuffed to a ‘red and black metal contraption in the tomb area of Lochdhu’.
Booth is seen beating the woman with various implements and telling her ‘to “pray for the strength to take it properly”’.
The judgement states: ‘This appears to be nothing other than torture’.
Lawyers for Police Scotland told the court officers could not 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.
He wrote in his judgement: ‘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.
‘The evidence of Mr Booth’s egregious conduct, as presented in court, was at times, utterly harrowing.’
He added: ‘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.’
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.
He appeared in private in connection with these allegations in December 2019 but the procurator fiscal discontinued these proceedings in March 2021.
As part of the order, police officers may conduct unannounced welfare checks at his properties.
He also cannot sponsor visas for anyone other than immediate family members without police approval.
Detective Sergeant Chris Hughes said: ‘The safety of women and girls is an absolute priority for us and we sought the Trafficking and Exploitation Risk Order as an option open to us to prevent any further offending.
“Trafficking and exploitation is a blight on our communities and has no place in society and we will use all resources open to us to tackle it.’
