A woman who tried to sue Donald Trump’s golf course for damages after being photographed urinating on it has lost her case.
Rohan Beyts (pictured) wanted £3,000 (about $3,750) for what she claimed was a breach of data protection laws after staff at the course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, caught her.
Staff said they photographed Beyts as part of an evidence-gathering exercise for what was assumed to be a criminal act.
But the sheriff presiding over the case in Edinburgh ruled against Beyts, saying that any distress she suffered was not caused by the company’s failure to register under the Data Protection Act.
However, Sheriff Donald Corke added that Beyts “should not have been photographed”.
During the hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court Beyts admitted she suffered from bladder problems and was caught short while walking through the course in April 2016. Giving evidence, she said she had hidden in sand dunes out of sight as she urgently needed to urinate.
Four days later, police visited her home in Montrose, and charged her with public urination. That case was later dropped. But Beyts then turned the tables on Trump’s company, saying it had breached data protection laws by photographing her.
Paul Motion, representing Trump’s company, said Beyt’s wide publication of the events through the media and Facebook, including the Trip up Trump page, raised doubts about how distressed the incident had been for her.
He also suggested the “true basis of the claim has been to publicise opposition to the course”.
Speaking outside court, Ms Beyts said she was “relieved the case was over”.
She said: “To me it was never about the compensation – I wasn’t interested in money. I was only interested in clearing my name when the Trump organisation representative spoke of me committing a deliberate and shameful act within a few feet of the club house in few view of staff and guests.”
Mike Dailly, her lawyer, said his client had been “utterly vindicated” adding that that the sheriff had found her evidence “reliable and credible”. He said: “The reason we’ve not won compensation is on a technical point.”
But Trump International Golf Links said in a statement that the organisation was “satisfied that justice has prevailed”.
A spokesman said: “The disingenuous claim by Rohan Beyts was a perversion of the truth and nothing more than a poor attempt at self-publicity in an effort to garner support for her anti-Trump, anti-business propaganda.
“It’s a disgrace that valuable time and money has been wasted defending a genuine north east business and its honest, hard-working personnel from this nonsense.”