Between approximately 1996 and 1998, Steven Bain and Steven Gawthrop, two men in Southport, Merseyside, England ran a scam to trick people into surrendering socks. They became known as the Southport Sockmen.[1]
Bain and Gawthrop would approach people in bars and clubs in Southport and buy the socks off their feet, claiming to be collecting them for charity.[2] They would also take photos of the socks' owners, including two policemen and a traffic warden, and carefully keep track of their names and pictures.[3] It later emerged that the men were foot fetishists and were hoarding the socks for their own sexual gratification.[4][5] They also paid their victims to carry out masochistic acts.[6]
When the men's flat was raided, the police found socks in 18-inch-deep (460 mm) piles everywhere around the residence, such that one officer commented it was "like an explosion in a sock factory".[1] The socks were thought to number 10,000,[7] and later estimated at 30,000.[8] In June 1998, Bain and Gawthrop were both sentenced to 18 months incarceration, and were registered as sex offenders.[4][9][6]
Whilst in prison, the pair got a job working in the prison laundry cleaning prisoners' socks.[4][8]
In popular culture
In 2016, a 14 minute short film titled Holes in their Souls, detailing the scam, was released.[10] The film's writer and director, Andy Smith, was one of the Sockmen's victims.[11] The film was independently funded, with a £10,000 budget raised in 28 days.[8]
