One of Britain’s richest men, Hamish Ogston, has been accused of trafficking Thai and Filipina women into the UK over the course of 15 years. Shocking accusations of sexual abuse on Ogston’s part have come to light after The Times published an explosive exposé on his alleged crimes, based on hundreds of leaked documents.
Ogston, 75, has denied the allegations, talking of his sadness that they will “cause immeasurable harm to the charities which I have been able to support over the years” – for the millionaire is, indeed, a noted philanthropist who had earlier pledged to give his 130 million pound fortune to charity in the event of his death. In 2011, he was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire)
The Times report also talks of how UK PM Rishi Sunak had praised Ogston’s philanthropy in April 2022. Now, however, the millionaire has been accused of trying to use his eponymous foundation as a foil to bring sex workers into the UK, among other crimes.
According to the exposé, Ogston was engaged in the exploitation of vulnerable southeast Asian sex workers for at least 15 years. In some cases, he forced women who entered the country on a tourist visa to stay on his property and act as sex workers. In 2022, he attempted to bring Thai sex workers into the UK, falsely trying to portray them as “bamboo basket weavers.”
As recently as this year, he hired a partner at a law firm to explore how he could potentially use his charity as a foil to bring sex workers into the country.
'Everybody knew'
Ogston, 75, has been accused of manipulating at least one Thai woman into having sex with his friends and other sex workers.
He is also accused of hosting all-night, drug-fuelled sex parties at his posh London residence. Some women at these parties were subjected to sexual acts so extreme and dangerous, they required medical attention.
Ogston sent some of them to a Harley Street doctor, Thomas Bozek, who intuited that his patients were being exploited but said that “everybody” knew about the millionaire’s lifestyle.
“I mean everybody talked about it ... they knew what his lifestyle was,” he was quoted as saying by The Times. “I thought they were potentially exploited in his household, so I thought they needed help. They needed to be looked at.”
Ogston did not carry out the exploitation alone – his co-accused the Lebanese scion of a banking family, Marwan Bedas. In 2013, Ogston contacted the then-64-year-old Bedas to help him bring sex workers into the country.
Bedas also signed a tenancy agreement for an apartment connected secretly to Ogston’s property through a passageway.
Ogston told Bedas he also wanted a “Filipino maid to live in the flat” who was “trustworthy and will not blackmail me over the [activities] that she will have to clear up at the end of an evening”, the Times report said.
Such a woman was found by Bedas. The report refers to her as Nicole and reveals that Nicole, 23 when she entered the UK, began organising and participating in Ogston’s parties. She lived as staff on his property and regularly participated in the sex parties which were filmed by Ogston.
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