Restaurateur guilty of spiking woman's drink

A restaurateur has been found guilty of spiking a woman's drink with a date-rape drug at a Mayfair private members' club in a bid to overpower her for sex.

Vikas Nath, 63, laced the woman's spicy margarita with gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) after she left him with the drink in the rooftop garden bar at Annabel's.

Southwark Crown Court heard Nath had grown frustrated with the woman's apparent reluctance to have sex with him prior to the spiking incident and took GBL in a vanilla extract bottle with him to the club.

Nath had two bottles of the liquid drug at his Knightsbridge home, as well as a motion sensor-activated covert camera pointed at his bed.

Prosecutors said his plan was to drug the woman and take her back to his home for sex when she had been "overpowered or stupefied".

However, eagle-eyed Annabel's staff spotted Nath using a straw to put GBL into the margarita, and intervened to prevent the woman from drinking it.

On Friday, Nath was found guilty by a jury of attempting to administer a substance with intent and possession of a Class B drug.

The businessman, who owns Michelin-starred Benares in Mayfair as part of a collection of top restaurants in the UK and Spain, looked to the floor as the jury returned its verdicts, and could be seen shaking his head in the dock.

He had been forced to admit spiking the woman's drink after he was caught red-handed by Annabel's staff and recorded on the exclusive members' club's CCTV.

The court heard Nath - after realising he had been "rumbled" - threw the bottle of Madagascar vanilla extract into a toilet cistern but it was later recovered by police.

Bar staff also managed to retrieve the spiked drink from the table, so it could later be tested by police forensics experts.

Prosecutor Tim Clark KC hailed the swift actions of Annabel's staff after they noticed "rather strange actions" by Nath on 15 January 2024.

"(They) watched Mr Nath put a straw into (her) drink, sticking his finger over the top", he said.

Nath had a small bottle in his hand, and used the straw to "suck up liquid" before dropping the contents into the woman's drink.

The woman, who had left the table, was intercepted by staff before she returned to Nath and was told what was unfolding.

She felt "betrayed" by Nath, she told the trial, but had initially defended him when staff warned that they believed her drink had been spiked.

"I remember vividly defending Mr Nath, saying 'There is no way he could do that"', she said.

"I remember sending him a message saying 'I'm sorry, I don't know what's happening'. Because I felt it was my fault. I didn't want him in trouble, I didn't believe it."

The court heard they had been in contact prior to the Annabel's incident, including for lunch meetings at Benares and the Beaverbrook Town House five-star hotel.

She also recalled Nath taking her to a burlesque show at Cirque Le Soir, and the court was shown messages in which Nath had actually warned the woman about drinks being spiked.

"I don't think I will be drinking today," she had messaged Nath, after an evening out.

He replied: "I think you should drink, but be aware of people around you. My biggest concern last night was someone spiking your drink."

After he was arrested at the club, Nath admitted spiking the woman's drink without her consent, but insisted he had been trying to "relax" her rather than overpower her for sex.

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