Transgender business mogul dies in accident

TRAGEDY . . . Stephanie Booth, who was born Keith Hull

A FORMER Royton salesman who became an entrepreneurial businesswoman has died in a tragic tractor accident, aged 70.

Stephanie Anne Booth, born Keith Michael Hull, was crushed by the tractor at her farm near Corwen, Denbighshire.

The star of 2009 reality television series "Hotel", Stephanie was found by her husband David who had gone to find his wife when she did not return.

An inquest has been adjourned to a provisional date next March, though it may be delayed further while the Health and Safety Executive investigates.

Aged 37, Stephanie began gender reassignment through a specialist psychologist at Wythenshawe Hospital. At the end of 1983, the then married father-of-three left Royton's Hestair Hope Ltd and returned in early 1984 as Stephanie Anne Lloyd.

In a Chronicle article dated February 6, 1984, she said: "I am now a woman ­­- I have nothing to be ashamed of."

But later that month, the sales and marketing director of the leading education suppliers was persuaded to quit her £26,000-a-year job to become a hotelier.

She led a colourful life, commanding six specialist clothing shops, setting up her own TV series, "Transformation", and launching several businesses for the transgender community.

Married

One such initiative was opening the world's first gender clinic, Albany Clinic in Prestwich, to provide specialist medical advice and guidance.

In 1985, Stephanie was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to keeping a disorderly house, in efforts to save her salon. Bolton Crown Court heard how she provided massage and sexual services above her lingerie shop.

Stephanie met Shaw man David after he responded to her advertisement for a business partner and the pair were married in a Sri Lankan ceremony in 1986.

She helped the supermarket chief to run one of his chains as well as setting up a transgender mail-order catalogue service and shops across the UK.

In the early 1990s, the couple moved to a 38-acre smallholding in Denbighshire, where they ran an animal rescue centre.

Stephanie led an unsuccessful takeover of Wrexham Football Club in early 2011, withdrawing her bid after claiming she received death threats.

In July that year, three of her hotels went into administration following a dispute over an unpaid tax bill. In the years leading up to her death, Stephanie instead focused on her mail order business and magazine Yattar Yattar.

Her body was found by her husband at her smallholding farm on September 18. She is survived by her husband, an adopted child, two stepchildren and by the children of her first marriage.