Less than a month ago, Dame Ann Gloag was rushed to Edinburghs Western General Hospital with a massive haemorrhage.
The 81-year-old philanthropist and businesswoman was in the queue at the citys airport passport control on her return from holiday with her husband David McCleary, when she fell ill.
There was so much blood, she says. I thought, "Is this it?"
Dame Ann was taken out of the airport by the fire brigade and remained in hospital for three days.
It was just an artery that had ruptured somehow. Im fine now, says this remarkable woman with a flick of her hand as if to say, what a fuss about nothing.
But, you wonder, she muses. Was it that, suddenly, my whole body was going, phew, its over. I dont know.
By it she means the Kafkaesque nightmare she was caught up in for four years as police investigated charges of people trafficking made against her by the some of the young men and women she supported to come to this country from Kenya on educational scholarships.
Dame Ann Gloag, 81, was rushed to Edinburghs Western General Hospital with a massive haemorrhage less than a month ago
This tiny, slip of a woman, who, without publicity or fuss, has given an astounding £62million to charity, was charged, alongside her 74-year-old husband, her daughter Sarah, 49, and son-in-law Paul McNeil, 55, in January last year.
No one could believe it. Former prime minister Gordon Browns wife Sarah was one of the first to come out in support of her saying: Gordon and I have known Ann Gloag for many years… she is a remarkable campaigner and quietly generous charity supporter. These charges just dont add up.
To any right-minded person they didnt, but officers at Police Scotlands Human Trafficking Unit pursued this thoroughly decent woman nonetheless. Her home was raided, computers and documents seized.
Within weeks of her 80th birthday, she was interrogated for eight hours at Falkirk police station. Her fingerprints were taken, her mouth swabbed and her reputation trashed.
What I thought was hurtful was when the female officer insinuated Id tried to paint myself as a Mother Teresa all these years, but this [human trafficking] was what I was doing, says Dame Ann. She said, Thats what the truth is, isnt it? It wasnt. Thankfully, common sense finally prevailed last month when the Crown Office announced there would be no prosecutions.
Sir Tom Hunter, one of Scotlands wealthiest entrepreneurs, said it was a national disgrace that police had taken so long to investigate a woman who has done more than anybody in Scotland in her charitable work and her business.
[Imagine] the stress, he added.
A week later Dame Ann suffered that dramatic health scare.
You know my biggest fear? she says now. That Id die before I was cleared. If you get your reputation trashed when youre young, you have the opportunity to clear your name because you have time on your side.
Dame Ann and her brother Sir Brian Souter in 90s. The pair launched a transport group with just two buses
Beaufort, one of Dame Anns two castles, near Inverness and Kinfauns
But it went on for so long I thought, in my lowest moments, Were never going to get justice. I could die and the family will never be cleared. That was not a good thought.
Dame Ann is one of the richest women in Scotland who shares a reported £730million fortune with her brother, Sir Brian Souter, after they founded the international transport company Stagecoach in the 1980s.
She has six children, 13 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. The family want her to put her feet up and rest more – she was only discharged from hospital a few days before we meet – but she is determined to push ahead with this, her first in-depth interview.
In her blue suede boots, jeans and smart blazer she fizzes with energy, fuelled, in part I suspect, by fury.
An intensely private woman, Dame Ann rarely invites journalists into her home, but she loves her husband, daughter and son-in-law dearly and is beside herself they have been dragged into this by people she treated as part of her family.
For she cared deeply about the students supported by her charitable trust The Gloag Foundation.
She fed them, housed them and clothed them. They swam in her pool and ate at her table. She gave them bus passes, a laptop, a mobile phone and even violin lessons. The trust also forked out a small fortune for their visas, university fees and an annual return flight home.
Such was Dame Anns generosity that one of the seven who accused her, amongst other nonsense, of infringing their human rights, spent lockdown here at her magnificent Kinfauns Castle in Perthshire – with its Bentley on the drive and works of art on the walls.
They drank beers with her grandchildren and watched football with her adopted 40-year-old son Peter, who, after a tragic car accident in Nairobi, Kenya 15 years ago, is bedbound.
I am taken to the wing in this vast, but homely castle where some of the 47 students who passed through her programme stayed. Log fires blaze in the hearths. Theres a sitting room with a thick, blue tartan carpet, comfortable bedrooms and a kitchenette with a dishwasher and a microwave for snacks.
None of it made any sense, says Dame Ann. Even without their accommodation, laptops, winter clothes and stuff, their university fees were between £6,000 and £12,000 a year and their visas more than £1,000.
If youre a trafficker you do it to make money, dont you? Well, I must be the biggest failed trafficker there is because I spent a fortune supporting people to come here. My track record in business isnt exactly poor is it? Do you think if I was a trafficker Id have thought – after doing the sums – that was a good deal?
She throws her hands in the air in exasperation. The diamonds on her fingers catch in the sunlight. They are the size of my kitchen tiles. Are they real? Yes, she says.
A former nurse, who grew up on a Perth council estate in a home without a television, she confesses she pinches herself when she considers how fortunate she is. She has two castles, Beaufort near Inverness and Kinfauns, as well as a house in Mallorca.
A committed Methodist, her father was a bus driver and her mother a leader of the Missionary Society in the church. As a child, she knitted blankets for the poor children of Africa and watched her mum take jam, soup or whatever she could spare to neighbours who were worse off than them.
Today, Dame Anns Gloag Foundation supports projects that prevent or relieve poverty and encourage the advancement of education, health and religion in the UK and overseas.
Having spent some of her happiest years as a ward sister, she established a burns hospital in Malawi and founded Kenyas Childrens Homes in 2002 which supports more than 1,500 children every year.
Six years later she set up Freedom From Fistula which helps more than 30,000 women and children across Africa with free healthcare, including surgery after prolonged, obstructed childbirth.
Dame Ann also founded the Jonathan Gloag Academy for orphaned and abandoned children in Nairobi in 2002, ran a school for 600 in the worlds largest slum, Kibera in the city and, until these allegations were made, provided scholarships for young Africans to study in Scotland.
We treated them like our family, she says. We invited them to family events – weddings, birthdays. Weve had some pretty big parties here. I can show you pictures of them in the marquee dancing with people like Lulu.
So, this has been very hard to take. I think my overwhelming feeling initially was anger because I felt betrayed. I was also confused. To say Id breached their human rights hurt. Id treated them very, very fairly. I was like, why on earth would they want to do this to me?.
She believes some clues to that question might lie on the Home Office website, where advice and help to potential victims of human trafficking is spelled out in black and white.
Dame Ann receives her damehood from Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace in February 2019
The Stagecoach millionaire and philanthropist is an intensely private woman and rarely invites journalists into her home
It can be a lucrative business: accusers are provided with accommodation and living expenses. They can receive medical treatment, counselling and are provided with legal aid for advice on everything from seeking asylum to claiming compensation from the Government.
They are also helped to pursue a civil claim against the person theyve accused.
As Dame Ann herself says: It doesnt matter whether you live in a castle or a bungalow, people need to understand this could happen to them. If you read the Home Office website, its very clear what someone, who claims to be a victim of trafficking, needs to establish and what compensation they can receive.
My concern is for people who, out of kindness, are trying to help them but have no clue how easy it is to get caught in this like I did.
Ive spent £2 million defending this. Most people cant do that.
The allegations against Dame Ann were made in 2020 shortly after she caught a self-employed cleaner stealing cash from her handbag. She told the woman, who was from the same Kenyan ethnic group as most of the six other complainants, to leave the castle immediately, but didnt report her to police.
I made a massive mistake, Dame Ann says. If Id called the police, things might have been very different.
The first Dame Ann knew she was being investigated was in 2020 when one of her former students, who is now an aviation engineer, told her she had received a call from a detective.
He was asking strange questions about me: Was I bad to her? Did I feed her? Did I allow her to leave the house? She told him he was being ridiculous and that I had only ever taken care of her.
The detective didnt want to talk to her after that.
Many of the young men and women who were helped by the Gloag Foundation were keen to vouch for the woman who made such a difference to their lives.
One, who was an orphan when he joined the programme, says what she has done for him is nothing short of a miracle. He now works as the CEO of a charity, is married with children and returns often to visit the woman he regards as a mother.
I didnt have parents, so Ann took me in and loved me like I was her biological child with her husband David. She paid for my wedding and, when my first son was about to be born, phoned me at 13 minutes to one in the morning to tell me not to worry, knowing I would. Whats happened is unfair. Ann is full of love and very honest. This has affected her. I know some of these people and believe they colluded to either get citizenship in the UK or money from Ann.
Unfortunately, corruption is rooted in our culture in Kenya. I think the accusers probably thought she would want to settle because of the damage to her reputation, but Ann is strong.
But the investigation continued with officers from the human trafficking unit interviewing students past and present, as well as Peters carers, her secretary and staff.
If someone makes an accusation like that, I understand its their duty to investigate. Im totally comfortable with that but, what I struggle with, is they completely disregarded the evidence of anybody who was positive about me.
In December 2021 four officers raided the castle, taking away computers and documents. They arrived at 7.30am on the day Dame Ann was hosting her annual party for the 30 or so people who worked in her investment office.
There was no question of her cancelling the party, however.
The police were carrying all this stuff out of the back door and we were playing games like Stop the Bus (a sort of musical chairs). Dame Anns eyes dance with humour as she tells me this.
I didnt get stressed until I was charged, she says.
Dame Ann, her husband, daughter and son-in-law presented themselves for interview at Falkirk police station on January 23 last year. Their legal team advised them to give a no comment interview. In Scotland, unlike England, to do so is commonplace and doesnt prejudice your case.
That was the first time I became aware of what was being said – stuff like, you didnt feed them and they were not free to move around. The hardest part was having to say no comment. I was dying to say they had a bus pass and got an airfare home each year.
Theyd be expected to muck in like my grandkids do – clean up after themselves, take the dog out, lock the doors at night, put the lights out. I dont think thats unreasonable.
If they couldnt get part-time work, theyd get pocket money for helping with chores such as bringing in logs or helping out in the garden. So, where was the cheap labour?
Dame Ann tells me, throughout eight hours of interview, she never thought she would be charged.
The investigation wasnt complete, she says. Surely, they should have gone back and questioned the people they chose not to formally interview who were positive about me? Thats the kind of stuff I struggle with.
When a female police officer charged Dame Ann at the end of the interview, she was in a state of shock. I wasnt going to give her the satisfaction of crying or showing how I felt.
The thing that was degrading is they take fingerprints and swab you for DNA. Thats what happens when youre a criminal.
When approached by the Mail, a Police Scotland spokesperson said: All complaints were fully investigated and our report submitted to the COPFS (Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service).
Dame Ann finally allowed herself to cry, largely in anger, in bed and in her husbands arms, when they were released from the police station.
She woke the next morning to find theyd made headlines in every newspaper and there were reporters at the gate.
We were not expecting that. We all thought it was between us, our lawyers and the police. Your reputation is the most valuable thing you have.
The following 19 months were, she says, hard.
Were a close family so we stood firm. My brother [Sir Brian] would phone and repeat what people hed met had said, they just want you to know what a lot of rubbish they think it is.
So many people prayed for us – I mean thousands. I was also blessed I had a huge team so I could defend myself, but it took months of going back through my life with lawyers. What did you do? How much did you give?
Dame Ann was getting in her car to go on holiday last month when the Crown Office made public its decision, a year-and-half after she was charged. Ive been sleeping or in hospital, but we will celebrate, she says. I just want to make people aware that they could find themselves in the most awful position like I did. This country is kind. We think, I could do this or that to help someone.
But there are so many asylum seekers across the whole country and some see [human trafficking laws] as an opportunity. Its not for me to tell the Home Office what to do but the law needs to be looked at or, at least, some of the wording on their website should be changed. This could be an epidemic coming down the line.
Since the allegations were made Dame Ann has not returned to Kenya and the scholarship program has been suspended. She says she will take at least six months to review what she does for charity in the future.
I dont want to rush to make a decision, she says. There is a kind of anger as I hadnt done anything wrong, but theres no point in burning up with hatred. Im not going to let a tiny number of people destroy the legacy of everything weve done. I wont be a quivering wreck in the corner. Im not a snowflake. Ive had a fortunate life.