Trump Organization staff were legally justified in taking pictures of a retired social worker as she urinated during a walk near a beach, lawyers have told a court in Scotland.
Paul Motion, acting for the Aberdeenshire golf resort owned by the US president, said a course employee used his mobile phone to capture the images of environmental activist Rohan Beyts, 62, as he believed she was guilty of a criminal offence.
“It was reasonable, proportionate and fair under the circumstances for [Trump Organization] employees to consider a crime was being committed and to take a photograph of that act,” Motion told the small claims court in Edinburgh.
Motion was summing up for Trump International Golf Course Scotland (TIGCS), the company that runs President Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf resort, in a £3,000 damages action brought by Beyts for breach of her privacy and causing her distress.
Beyts was told by police that two Trump employees and a third man had secretly taken images of her urinating while she was walking close to the beach near the course in April 2016 with a friend, Sue Edwards.
She says those images were used as evidence for a complaint to Police Scotland, who charged her with breaching the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. The charges were dropped after she refused to accept a written warning.
At the time, TIGCS were in breach of the data protection act because the company was not registered as a data holder with the UK Information Commissioner.
Beyts’s lawyer, Mike Dailly, told Sheriff Donald Corke she had been walking on the course under Scotland’s right to roam legislation, using a recognised right of way, and had been careful to observe Scotland’s countryside access code. She believed she was hidden from view at the time.
“It’s the law of this country that [Beyts] has the right to access the land reasonably and responsibly,” Dailly said. “It’s also understood under that code [that] once outdoors you’re allowed to relieve yourself responsibly.”
The court heard on Monday that Sarah Malone, an executive vice president at the course, had told police she had identified Beyts from photographs taken of her, including images taken by the course manager Steve Wilson.
Another employee, Edward Irvine, gave a signed statement to police saying he and a security guard had been told to “keep an eye” on Beyts and Edwards. The two men joined Wilson on high ground at the eighth tee, where Irvine used his personal mobile to photograph Beyts as she squatted down.
Irvine, the only Trump employee called to give evidence, told the court the police statement was wrong. He said he had actually gone to the eighth tee to show Wilson some dry grass that needed watering.
Motion told the court Dailly had offered no evidence to show that TIGCS had stored or processed Irvine’s photograph, or that Malone had relied on it when she complained to police. She may have used pictures taken by a local newspaper photographer, who had intercepted Beyts as she crossed the course.
He said there were clear exemptions in law for people to take mobile phone photos to detect crime even if they were not registered under the Data Protection Act, warning the sheriff it would be against the public interest if that was disallowed.
Motion said the simple fact that TIGCS had not been registered under that act did not mean Beyts was due compensation. There was no evidence TIGCS had mishandled or abused any data they had on Beyts. That would be “untenable and in my submission this would produce disproportionate and perverse results,” he added.
Sheriff Corke is due to deliver this decision at noon on Wednesday.
