Conviction Claimed spiritual healing or mediumship Stockport, England, UK · 2013

Michael Ireland: 16-year sentence for assaults disguised as Reiki and spiritual healing

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Reiki master, clairvoyant psychic healer, medium and teacher at spiritualist churches

Organization

Unnamed spiritualist churches and psychic centres in Cheshire and Greater Manchester

Spiritual nexus

The prosecution said that most complainants encountered Ireland through his claimed spiritual practice. He represented assaults as treatments for emotional blockages, demons, nonfunctioning body parts or blocked sexual-chakra energy and persuaded some complainants that sexual touching was a healing act.

Spiritual healing or treatment
Guru or spiritual-teacher authority
Threatened spiritual consequence

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2013-03-05 · guilty pleas and sentence

Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court. Ireland had pleaded guilty on the scheduled first day of trial in January 2013 to twenty-five sexual-offense counts involving eight complainants over approximately twenty-five years. On March 5 the court imposed a sixteen-year prison sentence, an additional three years on licence and lifetime registration as a sex offender.

Documented coercion mechanisms

purported treatment of emotional blockages
demon and chakra claims
claimed private healing methods
exploitation of therapeutic trust and vulnerability

Primary record

Sources

contemporaneous court reporting guilty pleas sentence and nexus Press Association, 'Spiritual healer jailed for abuse,' Irish Independent (Mar. 5, 2013).: Contemporaneous court reporting records the twenty-five guilty pleas, offense categories, sixteen-year sentence, eight complainants, prosecution account of Ireland's relative power and the specific spiritual-healing representations used during the offenses.

Related record

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