Ian Douglas Haig admitted allowing the Scorpio Leisure sauna in Edinburgh to be used for the purposes of prostitution.
Ian Douglas Haig
A pensioner who was convicted of running a seedy brothel inside a notorious sauna last year has now been struck from the landlord register.
Businessman Ian Douglas Haig admitted allowing the Scorpio Leisure sauna in Edinburgh to be used for the purposes of prostitution when he appeared at the city’s sheriff court last year. Haig, 83, made a profit from the operation by charging patrons an entry fee and being paid by the sex workers who rented out one of the sauna’s five bedrooms.
The pensioner was found to be running the sex den over a six year period following a police investigation into the death of a woman within the premises in April 2022. He was sentenced to a restriction of liberty order as punishment and was forced to wear an electronic tag on his ankle and stay within his home between 7pm and 7am for 90 days.
Now the OAP has been barred from letting out two properties he owns following a City of Edinburgh Council licensing meeting held on Monday, March 30. A report before councillors stated Haig had failed to declare the court conviction when applying to be entered on to the landlord register.
Haig, of the city’s West End, failed to attend the licensing meeting and did not have any legal representation present. Conservative councillor and committee convener Joanna Mowat told the meeting due to the nature of the offence councillors “have no option but to strike Mr Haig from the register”.
A total of four landlords were removed from the register during Monday’s meeting. Last year Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told a police investigation into the running of the brothel had found the woman’s death on April 30, 2022 to be “non-suspicious”.
The court heard Haig was the “the long standing tenant” of Scorpio Leisure and the premises was “offering paying customers massage services, advertised itself as a sauna and operated as a brothel.” Patrons entered the sauna through a locked inner door and the inside of the building contained a lounge, staff kitchen with 16 lockers, a shower area and changing room.
Ian Douglas Haig
There were five rooms inside “all containing a bed, mirrors on the walls, a corner bath and showers” as well as “stocks of wipes, lubricants and shower gel”. The court was told men attending the brothel paid Haig an entrance fee and the women would pay him £10 per client for the use of a room.
Nurses from the health charity SACRO regularly attended the premises to “supply condoms and offer sexual health advice and support to the women working there”.
Defence lawyer Nigel Bruce said: “Everyone in Edinburgh knew this place was run as a brothel including the police, the Crown authorities and social workers. SACRO regularly attended there and police officers were regularly in attendance and it was well known the premises were being operated as a brothel.
“He seems to have taken pride in his job and he seems to have a care for the welfare of the women who essentially were self-employed.”
The solicitor added there had been “no coercion or exploitation” of the women working at the sauna.
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