BBC documentary explores how Inverness rapist Kim Avis hid behind charitable deeds
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Do you ever really know anybody?
It is a question which is posed in the BBC documentary, Dead Man Running, which looks at the story of Inverness rapist Kim Gordon - otherwise known as Kim Avis.
It seemed everyone in Inverness knew Kim the Busker, a charismatic street trader who was a fixture in the city’s High Street as well as being a prolific charity fundraiser.
And yet few people actually knew him, or certainly his darker side.
Investigative journalist and producer Myles Bonnar returned to his home city to take a look at the story of how this once celebrated character faked his own death in the US before going on the run as it emerged he had failed to appear in court in Scotland to face rape and sexual assault charges.
He was eventually caught and in May 2021, he was convicted on 14 charges after a two-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
He was found guilty of preying on two girls and two women between 2006 and 2017 mainly in Inverness including at his property, Wolves Den.
In Dead Man Running, Mr Bonnar interviews various local people including journalists, a former councillor and a charity worker.
Journalist David Love, for example, recalls how Gordon was initially a busker when he first arrived in the Highland capital in the early 1990s.
According to one story, he had arrived on horseback.
He came to be regarded as a local character and yet he was not local and there was also speculation about where he came from as well as rumours that he was from a wealthy background.
“There was a bit of a mystique about him,” Mr Love recalls.
As well as selling jewellery and trinkets on the High Street, Avis earned wide respect by raising tens of thousands of pounds for charity by taking on swimming challenges of Loch Ness.
He was celebrated by visiting film stars and celebrities and received a commendation from the police for helping to keep people safe in the city centre.
Former Highland councillor Thomas Prag recalls on one occasion that there was the possibility of uproar if his street trading licence was not renewed.
Charity worker Izzie Macdonald saw Avis as a lost soul after he arrived in Inverness, swimming in the loch and rough sleeping under the stars.
“Do you really know anybody?” she ponders.
For behind his eccentric nature and charitable deeds, there lurked a sinister side.
For years, Avis hid the darkest of crimes as Jade Skea reveals.
For the first time, she speaks about her relationship with Avis whom she met when she 15.
She became his girlfriend when she was 18 and he was 42.
He later moved her into a static caravan in the woods and she found herself increasingly isolated and subject to a campaign of physical violence and abuse.
Eventually, in 2015 she went to the police and subsequently three more women came forward who had been raped and abused by Avis over decades..
David Love reflects on how Avis was once described as a credit to Inverness and an asset to the Highlands but had become an embarrassment.
“People perceived him as being a good guy but he was really an evil devil,” he said.
Disclosure: Dead Man Running, will be screened today at 9 pm on BBC One Scotland. It is also available to view on BBC iPlayer.
