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

A STRIP club has been shut down for three months following claims alleged “spikings” led to victims losing £250,000.

Following a licensing meeting on Monday the Soho venue’s representatives suggested husbands were lying as they didn’t want to admit “they spent summer holiday money on strippers”.

Visitors to Vanity Bar and Nightclub, Carlisle Street, have complained to the police that they had lost up to £98,000 and woke-up in random locations. Police have shared details of at least 10 reported incidents where allegedly victims have checked their accounts to find huge sums missing. One alleged victim told police £37,500 had been taken from his accounts and two others reported waking up the next morning to discover £30,000 had been taken.

The club denied any wrongdoing and claimed the police investigation was “half-baked” and “sloppy” at this week’s Westminster City Council licensing committee.

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

Mr Grant said some of the evidence was brought about because alleged victims were trying to make excuses to their partners.

“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”, he said. “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 club, instead, 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 city council, showed that one victim claimed he woke up in a brothel after visiting Vanity. He later allegedly found £98,000 had been transferred from his accounts.

The committee heard that most recently a man claimed he woke up in a street near his home after blacking out when he visited the club in November, and when he checked, his account showed he had sent money to a number of accounts he did not know and he had lost £16,000.

A report into the incident from Police Constable Steve Muldoon read: “The victim does not know how he arrived at these locations or how he has returned home.”

Following the incident police asked the city council to review the strip club’s licence. This was at least the tenth time that the police have been contacted about alleged incidents from inside the venue, according to a list of police reports provided.

When asked for CCTV footage, the strip club staff allegedly tried to avoid showing police 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 a 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.

Gerald Gouriet KC, for the Metropolitan Police Service, told the 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 club, the city council decided to suspend the venue’s licence for three months and to ban the bar’s managers from working at the venue.

The council also added 23 conditions to the strip club’s licence including staff having to be retrained.

The club has 18 dancers and claims that 20,000 people pass through its door each year.