Healer jailed for patient sex abuse

Sep 11 2008 by Rod Minchin, The Journal

A PERVERTED reflexologist was jailed for eight years yesterday for sexually assaulting four women during treatment sessions.

Stuart Hill, 57, who was supposed to be massaging his victims’ feet, touched them intimately on their breasts and genitals during treatment.

Hill gained the trust of the four patients and told them he was using the latest Chinese massage technique to make them better.

The “hormone therapy”, which he said was banned in the UK, involved placing a vibrating massager on an intimate part of the patient’s body as they lay on his treatment bed at Meridian Massage in Neville’s Cross, Durham City.

The defendant claimed this would make the victims aroused and orgasmic, which would make them feel better.

The reflexologist also said he could tell whether a patient had cancer by inspecting their feet or lymph nodes.

Hill, who was jailed in 2002 for sexually assaulting two patients, denied the offences, claiming during his trial at Durham Crown Court that he had healing hands and had not sexually assaulted the women.

However, the jury yesterday convicted him unanimously of six charges of sexual assault, two of assault by penetration and one of indecent assault. The charges span a five-year period from 2002.

Passing sentence, Judge Richard Lowden said Hill had abused his position of trust as a reflexologist to carry out the sex assaults and had done very considerable harm to the women.

“I do not doubt your ability to treat your clients and alleviate suffering,” the judge said.

“Often these women came to you as vulnerable people seeking alternative therapy as conventional therapy had been unable to alleviate their distress.

“They became hugely grateful to you for what you did but that, as this indictment shows, can create in vulnerable people a very strong bond of trust, which the verdicts show, you grossly abused for nothing other than your sexual gratification.

“The way you told one woman that she needed to reach a sexual climax at your hands is particularly gross.” Hill was also placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life and made subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, banning him from treating women.

Amanda Rippon, prosecuting, told the court how Hill would deliberately target female clients.

“He has been described by the women as an enigmatic person,” she told the jury of nine men and three women.

“They came to trust him and believe he was treating them genuinely. They were then sexually abused by him and sexually touched by him. He did this under the guise of helping them.

“Sometimes it appears he simply took advantage of a situation, tried it on if you like.

“He left these women ashamed, disgusted and distraught and feeling they were to blame and they felt stupid for falling for it.

“His behaviour is not just indecent, it is criminal.”

During the trial, Hill, of Red Courts, Brandon, near Durham City, told the jury: “I am unique. The results I have had with people prove that – I have healing hands.

“A body is just a body, to me it’s a piece of meat. My clinic is busy, day in, day out. If I was doing anything improper, the clients wouldn’t keep on coming back.”