Flashy Doogan Cleans Up As Vacuum Cleaner King

Mar 30 2008

FLASH Sean Doogan was born in Dundee's working class St Mary's area and began selling T-shirts and industrial gloves out of the back of a van as a teenager.

Within a few short years, he had moved to the hard-sell world of Kirby vacuum cleaners, rising to become one of their top salesmen.

Doogan became a distributor and dealer, first in Tayside then in Edinburgh and the East of Scotland. At his busiest in the mid 90s, he had 50 salesmen working out of bases in Leith and Fife.

The one who sold the most would be treated to a prize of a trip on Doogan's speedboat, which he moored at Lake Windermere.

Doogan ran around in a big Bentley with the registration 1 Vac, sporting hand-made Versace suits and flaunting his Rolex watches.

His boast was that his team could sell more than 200 Kirby cleaners in a month. He bought the machines for £300 in the US but would sell them for £1400 here.

Doogan took his long-time girlfriend Eloise to Hawaii to get married 10 years ago. He lavished diamonds on himself and treated her to a whopping solitaire costing nearly £10,000.

The couple had three daughters and moved into a mansion in Dalgety Bay, Fife, but five years ago, Doogan dumped his wife and began seeing former Kirby saleswoman Liz Quinn, 25, of Northern Ireland. She gave birth to their daughter Jo Jo two years ago and is now expecting another child.

The couple live in a £500,000 white bungalow, The Willows, on the outskirts of Dundee, with Doogan's sales team based in the grounds of the property.

Doogan has been a director with Especially Spain, ICU Security, That Tan and Kirby Services Scotland, all now dissolved. He was also a director of liquidated firm Drumdale.