Derek Thurlbeck 66

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A SPIRITUAL healer who had a “sincere belief” in his abilities has been jailed for more than two years after inappropriately touching women he claimed he was helping.

Derek Thurlbeck, of The Pastures, High Wycombe, went to the homes of four separate women and touched their genitals over their clothes while carrying out his practices.

Described by a ‘master manipulator’, he told one woman she was ‘cursed’ in a bid to convince her to get healed.

A court heard how Thurlbeck, 63, sexually assaulted the four women at their Slough homes over two years between 2017 and 2019.

The High Wycombe man offered spiritual healing to these women free of charge but when he carried out his practice he touched them in ways which were “inappropriate” and “unprofessional”, Her Honour Judge Real said.

He used the “rhetoric of spirituality” to justify his actions, the Judge added.

Thurlbeck “did not have an elaborate plan”, Judge Real continued, but did “take advantage” of the “vulnerable” women.

Reading Crown Court heard how Thurlbeck approached one woman on the basis that she had a curse, and that “something terrible” would happen to her if she did not receive his healing.

The woman, whose identity we are not revealing, had a statement read out in court by prosecutor Walton Hornsby.

She said: “The incident has affected me emotionally. It has left me with flashbacks.

“I feel he has invaded a space in my own home.

“Since the incident I have lost trust in anyone I don’t know, I have stopped going out and I want it all to end soon so I can get on with my life.

“If I see a small car like the one he used to drive I get scared he has returned.

“This went on for two whole years and I’m still living with the consequences of this.

“He is very dangerous; he is very clever and a master manipulator.”

Edward Butler, defending, said: “This is not a case where the defendant was entirely motivated by a sexual appetite.

“This was somebody who had a genuine and sincere belief in his ability and his calling to try to help people.

“It is something he has lived with his entire life. There were momentary lapses during his dealings in which he succumbed to temptation.

“For the most part, the defendant was sincerely motivated towards these defendants.

“All of this can not be explained away by some great charade.”

Mr Butler said since his arrest in March 2019, the defendant had undertaken “two-and-a-half years of abstinence” as he had not provided healings to anyone else.

Sentencing, Judge Real told Thurlbeck: “They [the women] would not have agreed to your sessions if they knew there was a sexual motivation behind it.

“All of this gives me cause for concern for your future risk.

“You don’t seem to have very much insight into the problematic nature of what you did.”

Judge Real sentenced Thurlbeck to two years and six months in prison after he was convicted of five counts of sexual assault by a jury following a week-long trial earlier this year.

He will serve half of this before being released on licence.

The 63-year-old was also handed an indefinite sexual harm prevention order.

Thurlbeck was sentenced at Reading Crown Court on Monday, August 16.