Trump pee gran: I lost but I’m still so relieved
Sheriff raps course staff but says activist did not prove her data protection case
A GRAN photographed peeing in dunes on Donald Trump’s Scots golf course lost a £3000 damages claim yesterday.
But retired social worker Rohan Beyts, 62, said she was “relieved” the sheriff who dismissed the case had also backed her right to be on the Aberdeenshire course – and urinate there.
Rohan, from Montrose, said: “It was never about monetary compensation, I wasn’t interested in that.
“I was only interested in clearing my name when the Trump representative spoke of a deliberate and shameful act … in full view of staff and guests.”
Sheriff Donald Corke rejected Rohan’s claims that staff at the US president’s Menie estate breached data protection laws.
But he said the long-term campaigner against the course development was a credible witness and within her rights to be on the course and to relieve herself in a considerate manner.
She had “a reasonable expectation of privacy” and should not have been photographed, he ruled. But she lost her £3000 damages action because she had not proved her distress was caused by the Trump organisation’s failure to register under the UK’s data protection laws.
The sheriff warned that “officious bystanders” who photographed women in such situations were at “very real risk of prosecution” under anti-voyeurism and public order legislation.
Golf course staff called in police after the incident but the fiscal did not prosecute.
Trump International Golf Links said in a statement: “We are satisfied that justice has prevailed.”
They described Rohan as having come on to their property as “a hostile opponent of the project looking for trouble”. Orlando & Jamaica