An actor who appeared in Netflix's Sex Education has been found guilty of 26 sex offences, including raping a school girl who came to him for acting tuition and sexually assaulting a child over an eight year period.
Alexander Westwood, from Albrighton in Shropshire, was dubbed "manipulative and predatory" and had a fascination with porn from an early age, a court heard.
He denied 26 offences, including raping a school girl who came to him for acting lessons and sexually assaulting a child over an eight year period. He will be sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown in February.
Jurors heard Westwood, who also appeared in BBC's Doctors, was a "rotten apple" and made a "a habit" and "a lifestyle" out of his repeated sexual offending.
Referring to two teenage girls, who came to Westwood for help with acting, Mr Wallace said one was "forced to act out the most inappropriate scenes" while the second - following her "dream" of going from school to drama college in Birmingham - was systematically abused by him. “As fame beckons, he met two impressionable 16-year-olds and used his revered position to abuse them," he said.
Between November 2020 and September 2021, Westwood raped and sexually assaulted the pupil going to drama school as well as inciting her to engage in sexual activity.
“She had ambitions to be an actress. She arranged lessons with him and over the course of time the defendant was able to do the most despicable acts with her," Mr Wallace said, adding Westwood would touch her, touch himself and raped her.
When she questioned and challenged him, he would say: "Do what your teacher says… do you trust me?", he added.
She was told not to tell anyone and when she spoke about not coming any more, the actor introduced a contract - a "coercive tool to keep her in line" - that "tied her in" to 365 lessons saying she would owe him as much as £18,000 or £36,000 if she broke it.
Westwood's abuse of the second teenager coincided with his assault on the first, occurring between May and August 2021.
She was shown a script depicting a scene between a father and daughter in Greek mythology and Westwood suggested she be nude, but she declined and later described it as "weird".
* If you've been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
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