One of Northern Ireland's best known professional hypnotists and hypnotherapists has been jailed for six years at the Crown Court in Derry for indecently assaulting 10 women patients.
Richard Tilley (67), whose professional name is Richard Glenn, abused the women at his surgery in his Brentwood Park home in the Foyle Springs area of Derry between May 2003 and June 2004.
Sentencing Tilley, who admitted 21 indecent assault charges, Judge Corinne Philpott QC yesterday ordered that the final two years of his jail term should be spent on probation.
Judge Philpott also ordered Tilley to be put on the sex offenders' register for life and invoked, for the first time in a court in Northern Ireland, the Sexual Offences Protection Order under which Tilley, on his release from prison, will be banned indefinitely from practising as a hypnotist or hypnotherapist.
Judge Philpott recommended that the "appropriate professional body" should ensure that in future when women attended a registered hypnotist or hypnotherapist for treatment, they should be accompanied by a female member of staff.
Several of Tilley's victims and members of his family wept as the sentence was passed.
Prosecuting counsel Jackie Orr told the court that Tilley had gained the confidence of all of his victims before he indecently assaulted them.
He persuaded most of them to take off their clothes before giving them an all-over body massage during which he touched them indecently.
Ms Orr said Tilley told some of his victims not to tell anyone about what he had done to them because "some people might find it a bit odd".
The prosecuting barrister told Judge Philpott that "it was done for the defendant's sexual gratification".
"All of the victims in this case were women. All would be classed as vulnerable women. The majority of them suffered from low esteem, depression, weight problems, tobacco addiction or from previous sexual abuse."
Defence counsel Martin Rodgers said Tilley started working as a hypnotist after he left the RAF in 1951.
"He has a clear record and until these offences an unblemished professional career. He has brought shame upon his family, lost his good standing in the community and brought shame upon his own professional body. He has lost all of that."
Judge Philpott said Tilley had abused the trust of vulnerable women who had gone to him for help. He had also damaged the reputations of other alternative medicine practitioners. "They did not know what to expect and he persuaded them to let him indecently assault them," she said.
The judge told Tilley he had behaved in an appalling manner. "You have duped and taken in vulnerable and naive women who came to you for help."