YOU CHEEKY MADAM
Brothel-keeper who made £1million from vice empire now wants legal aid to clear her name
A JAILED brothel-keeper dubbed Madam Moneybags wants public cash to fund her appeal.
Margaret Paterson, who enjoyed a lavish lifestyle funded by her lucrative sex-for-sale business, is seeking legal aid to overturn her conviction.
The 65-year-old served a five-year jail term for running a brothel and escort service in Edinburgh.
Her trial heard she spent almost £500,000 on designer goods, including exclusive handbags.
Details of her legal aid bid
emerged at the Court of Session in Edinburgh yesterday.
Paterson wants the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, who examine cases for possible miscarriages of justice, to look at her conviction.
The SCCRC have previously refused to refer her case for appeal judges to consider.
But Paterson, who was jailed in July 2013, is seeking a judicial review of that decision in the hope of clearing her name.
Yesterday, Lord Boyd agreed to a motion for an eight-week delay to allow Paterson to seek legal aid to pay her team of lawyers.
The Scottish Legal Aid Board last night said they had yet to receive an application.
Judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal rejected an earlier appeal bid in 2014.
Paterson – who could not be contacted for comment yesterday – still owes a reported £780,000 out of a £1million proceeds of crime order made against her.
She was hit with the demand in May 2015 and given six months to pay. But most is still outstanding.
In 2016, while still in jail, she appeared at Stirling Sheriff Court over the unpaid order – and told the court she wanted to know what had happened to her designer goods seized by police.
Paterson lived the high life on profits from her brothel in
Edinburgh’s Grosvenor Street, near Haymarket.
The sex workers considered the well-spoken madam, who grew up on a farm in Midlothian, as the boss.
She was known to give her prostitutes advice on domination.
Her former lover, Robert Munro, who was also jailed for five years, acted as her second-in-command.
Police discovered Paterson and Munro ran women in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Glasgow and Aberdeen from the flat for nine years, with 65 sex workers on their books. Up to eight women a night worked from Grosvenor Street, being sent out to meet clients at their homes and hotel rooms. Other men visited the basement flat on “in-calls” to choose an escort and pay for sex in one of the two bedrooms. But the operation came crashing down when police raided the flat in 2011. Detectives spent two days searching Paterson’s home, also in Grosvenor Street. They found piles of clothes and handbags, many unworn and in original wrapping. Cash totalling £204,660 was being kept in bags and a safe. Jewellery including a £4320 Versace watch and two rings worth £1400 each was found still in boxes. A court previously heard that Paterson’s assets included a property portfolio in Edinburgh and a number of bank accounts.