Booth trial adjourned until August as husband of Caithness lodge housekeeper denies trying to extort accused
A housekeeper at a Caithness lodge left her employer after “he broke her”, Wick Sheriff Court heard at the trial of 65-year-old Kevin Booth on Thursday.
Loch Dhu Lodge owner Booth has pleaded not guilty to directing a sexual communication towards the woman without her consent, asking her intimate questions and offering her money to engage in sexual activity.
The woman, from the Philippines, told fiscal Martina Eastwood: “It has affected me so much emotionally.
“This is the first time this has happened to me as an employee.

“I wasn’t able to get another job for a full year.”
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Under cross-examination from KC Brian McConnachie, the woman said she was initially reluctant to take the job because of what it involved.
She did not want to perform the extra duties, including the full-body massages.
In an email to Booth, she stated: “I’ll try to do my best to do those things I haven’t done before.
“I need to get this job so I can send money to my children every month.”
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She agreed Booth had said the duties could change if she was not comfortable with them and she was free to leave at any time and he would pay her travel expenses south.
The woman also acknowledged she had told Booth she was was happy to continue after she had done two massages.
When asked by him about this, she replied: “lt’s part of my job to massage you.”
She had eaten and socialised with Booth and his partner.
After she said she was leaving in December 2022, she said he offered to increase her £2000 a month salary to persuade her to stay.
Her husband told the court he had driven his wife up from their home in the London area to start work at the lodge.
He said they got a good reception from Booth and that his wife was initially very happy there but after several weeks, he became concerned about her welfare.
She became uncomfortable with how Booth spoke to her during the massages.
During one of his daily phone calls from his base in London, he advised her to make recordings while they were taking place.
He said: “She started to feel uncomfortable about certain things Mr Booth would say to her during the massages. I don’t think they were appropriate, neither would anybody else.”
Asked by Mr McConnachie why he did not return and get her to leave her job, he replied that she didn’t feel physically threatened.
“She said she could handle it and that she couldn’t leave as she had children to look after in the Phillipines.”
He added: “She wanted to stay working there as long as she could. It stopped when he broke her.”
He agreed with the KC’s suggestion that he believed that the accused was grooming his wife.
“Every week there would be something different. There would be a new threat to her.”
He rebutted Mr McConnachie’s suggestion that he had tried to extort £10,000 from Booth.
Mr McConnachie: “You demanded £10,000 from him?”
The husband: “No. I didn’t.”
Mr McConnachie: “You got your wife to make recordings in a bid to get money from Mr Booth?”
The husband: “There was no intention of extorting anything from him.”
He said he had helped her secure a £2500 settlement from the employment arbitration body ACAS after she left.
The husband told Ms Eastwood that he and his wife, who met online, went on a holiday to the Philippines shortly after he picked her up and took her back home.
“It destroyed her holiday. She was emotional as by this time things had been reported.”
The trial was adjourned until August 7 when the prosecution case will resume.
Mr McConnachie had at the outset sought to have the proceedings aborted or at least delayed because of what he said had been pre-trial prejudice by the BBC.
He referred Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald to an article on the front page of the BBC website and accompanying national news stories about his client. He said the content contained background information about him which meant he could not get a fair trial.
Ms Eastwood opposed the KC’s submission, maintaining there had been nothing in the BBC output which would be prejudicial.
After a 20-minute adjournment, Sheriff MacDonald said that unlike a jury trial, the current case is being heard under summary procedure by a sheriff who decides on both fact and law.
She said: “Whatever the publicity has been in relation to Mr Booth, I’m capable of putting any publicity I may have seen out of my mind for the purposes of this summary trial.
“I will be able to determine the case on its merits and would not allow any extraneous considerations to affect any decisions I would make.”