Spiking allegations as strip club licence suspended

A Soho strip club has been shut down for three months after a series of alleged spikings led to victims losing £250,000, according to a council report.

But the venue suggested husbands were lying as they did not want to admit “they spent summer holiday money on strippers”.

Visitors to Vanity Bar and Nightclub in Soho have complained to the police that they have lost up to £98,000 and woken up in random locations.

Police have shared details of at least 10 reported incidents where alleged victims have checked their accounts to find huge sums missing from their accounts.

One alleged victim told the police £37,500 had been taken from his accounts and two other victims reported waking up the next morning and discovering £30,000 had been taken from them. Both had visited Vanity.

In one alleged incident at the venue, someone reported a stolen £19,000 watch to police.

The strip club has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the police’s investigation into the alleged spikings and fraud was “half-baked” and “sloppy” at a Westminster City Council licensing committee on Monday.

Representing Vanity, lawyer Gary Grant accused police officers of not fully reading crime reports before trying to shut the place down.

Mr Grant told a Westminster licensing committee: “The police approach is a broad brush. It is: ‘Look at how many complaints there are. There can’t be smoke without fire…’

“With respect, we disagree.”

The lawyer alleged that some of the evidence was brought about because alleged victims were trying to make excuses to their partners.

He said: “There are instances of when the wives, girlfriends, and partners have found out because they’ve been pinged by their bank about what’s going on.

“It is not uncommon during allegations for those men to say: ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t me. I must have had my drink spiked and that explains why I spent our summer holiday money on strippers.’”

The strip club argued the drink spikings may have been taking place at brothels later in the night rather than at the strip club.

Police logs shared with the council show that one victim claimed he woke up in a brothel after visiting Vanity. He later allegedly found that £98,000 had been transferred from his accounts.

Most recently a man claimed he woke up in a street near his home after blacking out when he visited the strip club on November 26, 2022. He recalled buying a drink, dancing and being led to a separate area, but claimed he had no other memories until he woke up the next day.

When he checked his bank account he had sent money to a number of accounts he did not know and had lost £16,000.

A police report into the incident from PC Steve Muldoon added: “The victim woke up the next day and was in a street near his home address and he subsequently checked Google Maps and found he was at Vanity and then left approximately two hours after arriving.

“He found himself at a location on Google Maps showing a car wash where he was for nearly two and a half hours. He was then dropped near his home. Google Maps has this down as a route he was driven.

“The victim does not know how he arrived at these locations or how he has returned home.”

Following the incident, the police asked Westminster City Council to review the strip club’s license. This was at least the 10th time that the police have been contacted about similar alleged incidents from inside the venue, according to a list of police reports provided to the council.

When police officers asked the strip club for CCTV footage, staff allegedly tried to avoid showing the Met the correct timings. When they did manage to see the requested footage they saw men touching the dancers, something that is banned under sexual entertainment licensing rules.

Screenshots of CCTV footage, shown in a council report, reveal men touching the dancer’s private parts and kissing.

Mr Grant agreed that people were getting too drunk at the venue and that customers should not be touching dancers. But Vanity’s representative said the police should look more carefully into the cases.

Met Police lawyer Gerald Gouriet KC said that it did not matter whether someone was spiked or not, and said Vanity had a “heavy burden” for letting people leave their premises in a vulnerable position.

He told the Westminster City Council licensing meeting: “The victim on November 24 leaves the premises and suffers thousands upon thousands of loss on his credit cards.

“Leaving as he did in the state that he did is the responsibility of Vanity and they have the heavy burden of responsibility for what happens to him afterwards.”

Following a seven-hour meeting about the future of the strip club, Westminster City Council decided to suspend the venue’s license for three months and to ban the bar’s managers from working at the venue.

The council added 23 conditions to the strip club’s licence, including staff having to be retrained. The strip club has 18 dancers and claims that 20,000 people pass through its door each year.