
Castle-owning 'lady of the manor' who has changed gender three times says she is victim of council 'lynch mob'
A self-styled lady of the manor is planning a legal battle against her local community council after it disbanded in an attempt to remove her.
At a meeting on Thursday it was unanimously decided to dissolve Ardgay and District Community Council in Sutherland.
However, moments later a petition was lodged for it to be reformed.
Samantha Kane – a member of the now dissolved community council – claims the move was fuelled by bias against her.
The landowner wants Scotland's top court to declare the decision unlawful.
Ms Kane, who owns the 19-bedroom Carbisdale Castle in Culrain, Ardgay, claimed she was the victim of a discriminatory 'lynch mob' and claimed her human rights had been breached.
The barrister, who named herself Lady Carbisdale after buying the dilapidated property for £1.2million in 2022, is believed to be the only person in the UK to have changed gender three times.
After this week's decision to dissolve the council, a furious Ms Kane vowed to fight the decision. She claimed: 'The meeting was pre-determined with the sole purpose of getting me out, which is discriminatory and undemocratic.
'I am petitioning the Outer House of the Court of Session to declare both the meeting which decided to put the motion and thepublic meeting last night unlawful. It was predetermined by bias against me.
'My human rights hav ealso been infringed by being deprived of representing the area as a councillor. I was not even allowed to put my case to the public meeting.
'I have never seen such a lynch mob – all that was missing were the pitchforks.
'A lot of the so-called public were not from the area and thus not eligible to vote. I believe that only 30 of those present were eligible to vote – out of a population of 800.'
Campaigners hope to reform the council without Ms Kane.
It comes amid ongoingskirmishes at the community council and a bitter row between Ms Kane and locals after she claimed the area was 'not ready' for atransgender custodian ofthe castle.
The latest move to disband the community council marks the second time it has been dissolved. It reformed in October after seven new members were elected – months after being dissolved by Highland Council when four of its five members quit.
The newly-elected community councillors had joined existing member Ms Kane, but at the body's monthly meeting on April 17 a motion to dissolve the council was passed.
Chairman Les Waugh said the community council had received written and verbal complaints about Ms Kane's behaviour at meetings.
He has previously criticised her behaviour at meetings as 'appalling', and said: 'She sometimes behaves like a six-year-old child who has been scolded, shouting at people, stamping her feet and banging her walking stick on the floor like a football hooligan.'
Thursday's meeting was attended by 150 people, who voted unanimously for the move.
Born in Iraq as a male named Sam Hashimi, the barrister had surgery in 1997 to become Samantha, before a second operation in 2004 when she changed her name to Charles Kane, and then a third surgery to become Samantha again in 2018.
The wealthy barrister has ploughed millions into restoring 118-year-old Carbisdale Castle after fulfilling her dream of becoming a 'princess in her own fairytale' by buying the property.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Telegraph
28 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Ed Miliband's nuclear golden era could soon become a new dark age
This Government is fond of making grandiose claims for things that are yet to happen. The latest is Ed Miliband's declaration that we are in 'a golden era of nuclear power.' He has made a series of announcements that may or may not come to fruition over the next two decades, including a new nuclear plant at Sizewell with £14 billion of public money behind it. But Mr Miliband is getting well ahead of himself. History shows that few public policies of modern times have been more mishandled. Britain once led the world in nuclear energy and it was very much a cross-party venture. The post-war Attlee government established the Atomic Energy Research Establishment and the first ever commercial nuclear reactor was built at Calder Hall under the Tories in 1956 just as the Suez crisis increased concerns over the supply of oil. British nuclear expertise was second to none and sought around the world. Under both Conservative and Labour administrations, the UK became a leader in nuclear power development, commencing operations on 26 Magnox reactors between 1956 and 1971. The technology chopped and changed, moving from advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) in the 1970s to pressurised water reactors (PWRs) and even a fast-breeder reactor experiment at Dounreay in Scotland, opened amid great fanfare by Margaret Thatcher but which has now closed. Her government set in train a plan for eight new PWRs, only one of which – Sizewell B – was ever built. What happened? One answer is North Sea oil and gas. Fears about fuel scarcity and sky high prices abated as more came ashore. Cheap gas made the cost of nuclear look prohibitive to politicians fixated only on the short term. Meanwhile, across the Channel, the French, with no oil and depleted coal reserves, invested instead in nuclear power. By 1979 they had installed 56 reactors, satisfying their power needs and even exporting electricity to other European countries, including us. The French are even going to be building Sizewell C. They produce 70 per cent of their electricity by nuclear fission, which does not emit CO2, and are not dependent on energy from volatile regions like the Gulf or despotic regimes like Russia. This serendipity was as much a function of force majeure as foresight. As the French said 'no oil, no gas, no coal, no choice'. As a result they have found themselves in a better position than Britain in the switch to low carbon renewables. Because of the apparent bonanza provided by North Sea oil, we neglected the one source of power that would help create self-sufficiency and meet climate change objectives. Only when it was too late and much of the industry's expertise had been lost did the last Labour government try to reactivate the nuclear programme. Ironically, it was Mr Miliband as Environment Secretary who revived the programme 15 years ago in the teeth of objections from Labour 'greens'. Yet only one new reactor at Hinkley Point – using French technology and, to begin with, Chinese finance – has been given the go ahead. It is way behind schedule by at least six years and massively over budget. For all the trumpet-blowing is the new Sizewell announcement just another milestone along a road paved with good intentions and wretched decision-making? We know it will be hugely expensive and the idea of it coming on stream within 10 years is for the birds. Since it is a copy of Hinkley it should benefit by learning from the mistakes made there. But few can have confidence in the project meeting any of its financial targets or the timetable for construction because nothing in this country ever does. Around the world there is a boom in nuclear power building as countries see it as an essential complement to wind and solar, not least because it provides a baseload and is not dependent on the weather. Sixty reactors are being built globally – 30 of them in China, which has also opened a thorium plant, something we could have done years ago since we have plentiful supplies and the process reduces waste. Is there any area in which the UK can press ahead? Tucked away in his Telegraph article this week, Miliband says the Government is ramping up spending on nuclear fusion research, though this seems more a token mention than an enthusiastic embrace. Yet fusion is one area where the British do have a great deal of expertise, with start-up companies well ahead of any European competitors in raising investment. It is always said that fusion is the future that never arrives because it involves replicating the same processes seen on the Sun. About 35 years ago two chemists shocked the world by claiming they had come up with 'cold fusion' obviating the need to produce the excessive temperatures needed. But the science was flawed, even though some adherents still think cold fusion is possible. Fusion technology is advancing rapidly and is likely to accelerate with the help of AI, high temperature superconducting magnets and supercomputers. But those in the business fear the Government is making the same mistakes as its predecessors in failing to measure the long-term in decades, not parliamentary sessions. China, Japan and America are now in the vanguard of a technology in which the UK once led, as it did with nuclear fission. Arguably, the most important aspect of Miliband's plan is the green light for a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs), though getting planning agreements past local communities will be hard. Even this has been fraught with bureaucracy and delay. A competition to find a developer for SMRs has taken two years before alighting on Rolls Royce. Why has it taken so long? The potential offered by SMRs was identified years ago; yet once again, government dithering has led to everything being done when it is too late to fill the energy gap that will threaten black-outs in a few years' time. This is because the switch to renewables, the ban on new North Sea extraction licences and the demise of coal will make the decommissioning of existing nuclear power stations even more problematic before new ones come on stream. How long before Mr Miliband's golden era turns into a dark age?


The Guardian
34 minutes ago
- The Guardian
We must match the courage of Issa Amro in standing up to Israel and settlers
Issa Amro's article is as devastating as it is galvanising (I told the truth about the West Bank and was threatened and assaulted. Now I'm relying on you to act, 3 June). His courage in standing up to the illegal actions of Israel settlers and the state of Israel is inspirational. If individuals who have no protection dare to speak up and defend themselves against decades of oppression and dehumanisation, risking their lives and those of their loved ones, surely our governments have a duty to act, not just issue words of condemnation. These words still fall short of calling appalling acts like starving civilians genocide, and calling the decades of policies and violence against Palestinians ethnic cleansing. Our governments have the power to make a difference, but still they provide arms to and stand by a state that violates international law. All of us who numb ourselves to reports of the numbers of innocent people murdered (though it is not called that either) will have to live with the knowledge that we didn't do enough. We must protest, inform ourselves about which companies are complicit and boycott them. I am hanging my head in shame that I voted for this government. I am astounded, disgusted and BlakeHove, East Sussex


BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Family visa income threshold should be lower, review says
The minimum income threshold for family visas should be relaxed, a government-commissioned review has recommended.A report by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has suggested a reduction from the current level of £29, warned against previous proposals to raise the threshold to the same level as for skilled workers - £38,700 a year - saying it could breach the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).The Conservatives said that the UK should leave the ECHR if it "stops us from setting our own visa rules". Article 8 of the ECHR enshrines the right to family threshold is the minimum income a British citizen or settled resident must earn to bring their partner to join them in the UK. If the partner is already in the UK on a valid visa, their income also counts towards the minimum applications are made by people not already living in the UK. The MAC suggested a range of possible new thresholds. It said a level between £23,000 to £25,000 would enable families to support themselves.A threshold of between £24,000 to £28,000 meanwhile would put more emphasis on economic wellbeing - both of the families themselves and for said it did "not understand the rationale" for setting the family visa threshold at the £38,700 level for skilled workers, as the two visas have "completely different objective[s]".A £38,700 level would be the "most likely to conflict with international law and obligations".It is the government's decision whether to accept any of the MAC's recommendations. Prof Brian Bell, chairman of the MAC, said that balancing family life and economic wellbeing was a "real trade-off"."There is a cost to the UK economy and UK taxpayers of having this route, and we should just be honest about that and say there is a trade-off," he said."But similarly, on the other side, people who say 'we should set it at very high numbers to make sure that we don't lose any money' ignore the massive impact that has on families and the destruction of some relationships and the harm it causes to children." A higher threshold would also have a "negative impact on the family life of a larger number of people", the MAC said. It noted many families with lower incomes still earn enough to support themselves even if they do not make a net positive fiscal impact on the said an adult would need to earn £27,800 to have a neutral impact on the public finances - and £40,400 for a couple to have no impact in the first year a spouse arrived in the MAC did not recommend a higher threshold for families with children, saying the impacts on family life for them would be "particularly significant". In 2023 the previous Conservative government announced plans to raise the salary threshold to £38,700, as part of plans to cut the level of they backed down following criticism that this would keep families apart, settling on a £29,000 threshold with plans to gradually increase it did not implement those further rises when the party came into government and asked the MAC to review the committee said the threshold of £29,000 was already high compared to other high-income countries it had looked at. The MAC said it "was not possible to predict with any confidence" the impact different thresholds would have on the level of net migration - the difference between those entering and leaving the did suggest lowering the threshold from £29,000 to roughly £24,000 may increase net migration by up to 8,000 migration in 2024 was an estimated 431,000 people, down almost 50% on the previous followed record high levels in recent years, with the government under political pressure to get numbers down further. The MAC also criticised the Home Office for its data collection, saying insufficient data "greatly hindered" their review.A Home Office spokesperson said the government was considering the review's findings and would respond in due course. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said migration figures remain too high and that the government "must urgently re-instate the Conservative plan to further increase the salary threshold"."If the ECHR stops us from setting our own visa rules, from deporting foreign criminals or from putting Britain's interests first, then we should leave the ECHR," he ECHR, which was established in 1950, sets out the rights and freedoms people are entitled to in the 46 signatory countries and is a central part of UK human rights month, the government said it would bring forward legislation to clarify how aspects of the ECHR should apply in immigration cases.