Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction New Age and human-potential movements Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK · 2022

UK: hypnotherapist Ian Roper convicted after commanding a client under trance to undress

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

registered hypnotherapist conducting a paid one-on-one hypnosis session with a client

Organization

No organization assigned

Spiritual nexus

A client under Roper's induced hypnotic trance, during a paid therapeutic session, was told she was somewhere else entirely and acted on his spoken suggestions while unable to test them against her own judgment — the trance state itself was the instrument that made refusal impossible.

  • Spiritual healing or treatment

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2022-09-30 · guilty plea and sentence

    Bradford Crown Court, England. Ian Roper, 58, pleaded guilty to causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent and to possession of five indecent images of children. Recorder David Gordon sentenced him to 29 months' imprisonment (25 months for the sexual offence, 4 months consecutive for the images), imposed a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order banning him from working as a hypnotist or hypnotherapist, made him sign the sex offenders' register for 10 years, and imposed a restraining order against contacting the victim.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • induced hypnotic trance used to convince the client she was on a hot sun bed and needed to apply imaginary sun cream to her body
  • the client's second-ever session with him, before she had any basis to doubt his instructions while under trance
  • the therapeutic setting itself, which gave his spoken suggestions the appearance of legitimate treatment

Primary record

Sources

high quality reporting disposition Nadia Lincoln, "Yorkshire hypnotist sexually abused client after 'telling her she was on a sun bed'", YorkshireLive/ExaminerLive, 1 October 2022.

Contemporaneous report of the sentencing, guilty plea, and trance mechanism used against the victim.

high quality reporting disposition "Hypnotherapist who made woman engage in sexual act while under his control is jailed", PA Media via Yahoo News UK, 1 October 2022.

Confirms sentence breakdown, Sexual Harm Prevention Order terms, and the ban on working as a hypnotherapist.

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