Stagecoach tycoon Dame Ann Gloag, 80, among four charged with human trafficking offences

Stagecoach tycoon Dame Ann Gloag, her husband and two other members of her family have been charged in connection with human trafficking offences.

The Scottish Daily Mail can reveal the 80-year-old multi-millionaire and philanthropist was charged after a police interview on Thursday.

Dame Ann – one of Scotland's richest women – was accompanied by her husband David McCleary, 72, when she attended Livingston police station in West Lothian.

Her stepdaughter and daughter-in-law Sarah Gloag, 47, and her son-in-law Paul McNeil were also questioned by detectives investigating allegations of human trafficking – and all four were charged, though no arrests were made.

Who is Stagecoach millionaire Ann Gloag? 

The insider said: ‘This investigation has been a Kafkaesque nightmare for the last two years.

‘People who Dame Ann and her family tried to help turned on them and colluded in making complaints that were baseless – it is absolutely shocking.'

It is understood the allegations were made by people who were brought to Scotland as part of Dame Ann's charity work.

Last night a Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘On January 19, 2023, four individuals were charged in connection with an investigation into alleged human trafficking and immigration offences. A report will be sent to the procurator fiscal.'

Dame Ann has six children, 13 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

The Gloag Foundation supports ‘projects that prevent or relieve poverty and encourage the advancement of education, health and religion in the UK and overseas'.

Dame Ann, co-founder of the international transport company Stagecoach, served as an executive director with the firm until May 2000.

She founded Freedom From Fistula in 2008 and expanded the charity to help more than 20,000 women and children across Africa.

The charity is dedicated to helping women and girls who are injured and left incontinent following prolonged, obstructed childbirth.

Dame Ann previously helped establish a hospital in Malawi and also founded Kenya Children's Homes in 2002 which now educates and cares for more than 1,500 children every year in Kenya.

In 2019, she was awarded the honour of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen, in recognition of her business and charitable endeavours.

Dame Ann has a combined worth of £730million together with her brother, Sir Brian Souter, 68.

She has previously told how she amassed her wealth by ‘fighting for survival'.

Before her business career, she worked as a unit sister in Bridge of Earn Hospital, Perthshire, where she met her future husband, Robin Gloag, while he was a patient.

By the 1970s, the couple were running a small caravan sales business but, after 20 years in nursing, Dame Ann Gloag branched out.

The couple, along with Mrs Gloag's brother, bought a bus for £425.

Their intention was to take the trip of a lifetime to China but the plan failed through visa problems.

Instead, the entrepreneurs were invited by a construction company to provide transport for workers travelling to building sites.

The brother and sister realised the potential and with their savings and their father's timely redundancy payment of £25,000, they bought two more buses.

Stagecoach expanded from its limited Perthshire routes to offering cheap tickets between Dundee and London.

The venture took off and Stagecoach Group is now an international company operating buses, trains, trams and ferries.

Dame Ann's former husband Robin was killed in a car crash in December 2007 and she has been married to Mr McCleary since 1990.

At her 70th birthday party in 2012 she had 250 guests at her home – Kinfauns Castle in Perthshire – as well as live performances by legendary singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka and veteran Scots pop star Lulu.

In an interview with the Mail in 2018, Dame Ann said: ‘We were brought up with a very simple background.

‘My father was a bus driver and my mum was the Missionary Society leader.

‘From the time we were small, although we didn't have a lot, we were always taught to share a little bit of what we had.'

Dame Ann was raised in the Church of the Nazarene and there was no television in the house.

She was imbued with a strong business sense at an early age and ‘always knew I would be the breadwinner'.

Dame Ann left school without a single O-level but after attending Perth High School, she trained as a nurse.

She spent 20 years in the job with stints both as an operating sister and on children's wards.

Dame Ann is one of 175 of the wealthiest individuals worldwide to have signed up to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge, a promise to give at least half their net worth to philanthropy.

Other signatories include Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Tesla founder Elon Musk, David Rockefeller and fellow Scot Sir Ian Wood.

Dame Ann said: ‘I think if you consider yourself to be a person that's been very blessed in life you want to do something for somebody else.

‘I just can't think of a reason why you wouldn't do it. If you have the capacity, if you have the knowledge and the awareness, then it's easy to try to do something to help.

‘If I could beam most people into that situation I think they would want to do the same as I do. If you can take a person out of that misery and you have the ability to do so, surely you would.'

Dame Ann has said that all of her children and grandchildren ‘go and work in the orphanage and I think that's very good. I think it's a great leveller'.

She said: ‘It's had an influence on them, they love it. It's added to their lives that they've been involved. And we adopted a Kenyan child [Peter who was badly injured in a car crash in Kenya in 2009 and remains paralysed], my daughter adopted a Kenyan child, so there has been a lot of influence throughout the family as a result of the work we've done.'

In 2021, Dame Ann got the green light for plans to open up her Highland retreat as an outdoor holiday resort.

She bought the 11th-century Beaufort Castle from Lord Lovat in 1994.

Despite local protests, the Stagecoach founder was given the go-ahead for her holiday resort at the estate, which includes 50 bespoke holiday cabins.

Dame Ann had been in a battle with local residents over the plans since September 2019.