Editor’s word: This story accommodates particulars of sexual abuse some readers might discover upsetting.
Alexander Westwood was fast to brag about his performing credentials. His Instagram profile, which stays public, options him grinning on the set of Intercourse Training alongside the Netflix collection’ star Asa Butterfield. Blood-spattered selfies present him costumed as a Nice Battle soldier on location for BBC crime drama Father Brown. Solely final yr, he walked the purple carpet for a Insurgent Moon: Half Two screening, thanking Netflix for a “beautiful night.”
The posts give the impression of a person who had cracked an ultra-competitive business. No less than this was the impression he left on a mom who encountered Westwood in 2020 and was persuaded by his provide to supply performing classes for her 16-year-old daughter. Lilly, a pseudonym we’re utilizing to guard the id of the survivor, had an performing itch she had needed to scratch for so long as she might bear in mind.
Now practically 20 years previous, Lilly seems again on the choice to simply accept Westwood’s tutelage as a second that defines her younger life. It’s not a attain to say that it could possibly be a storyline ripped straight from Intercourse Training, a drama that offers artfully with problems with abuse and consent. It definitely speaks to broader points round abuses of energy within the leisure business.
What was meant to be a dream alternative quickly was a nightmare ordeal. Inside weeks of attending his lessons, Westwood raped Lilly and weaponized his perceived energy to make sure she stayed silent about his crimes for months. It turned out this was a sample of conduct and Lilly wasn’t alone in her struggling. Final week, he was jailed for 15-and-a-half years after being convicted of 26 counts of sexual assault and rape. There have been 5 victims, together with one different he met by means of performing tuition. Described by a choose as a intercourse offender by life-style, Westwood was despatched right down to the sound of applause from the UK courtroom’s public gallery. “If an actor goes off stage, you must clap,” Lilly’s mom stated on the time.
Lilly, who gave proof at Wolverhampton Crown Courtroom, is telling Deadline her story for the primary time for the reason that trial concluded. In a startling interview, by which she mourns for misplaced teenage years, Lilly speaks bravely and unsparingly in regards to the trauma she skilled by the hands of a person who she tells us used his minor movie star standing to “take her virginity”. She is decided, nevertheless, that he won’t rob her of her ardour for performing — and the profession she sees earlier than her.
“Undress In Entrance Of Me”
Lilly says her first classes at Westwood’s residence in December 2020 began with out suspicion. He talked to her in regards to the business, helped put together her for finding out performing in school, and launched her to some monologues, together with a scene from Legally Blonde. For his or her third or fourth lesson, Lilly was instructed to study her traces and are available ready with a fancy dress. This struck her as being barely uncommon, however she accepted her job as a result of Westwood made his request in a method that “appeared regular” to her.
After performing her first monologue, Westwood instructed Lilly to vary into her costume. She motioned for the lavatory. “No, undress in entrance of me,” got here the reply. “While you’re in that second, your mind freezes,” Lilly remembers. Shaking with concern, Lilly instructed her tutor that she was uncomfortable and thought of making a bolt for the door, however she was fearful about his bodily risk. Ultimately, she remembers turning away from Westwood and shortly turning into her costume. Lilly carried out her piece and adjusted again into her garments, once more all underneath Westwood’s gaze.
“I used to be attempting to say to myself, ‘It’s superb, you’re okay.’ However in fact, it was not okay. Think about being in a room with a person of 21 and also you’re only a frightened 16-year-old. You don’t know what’s going to occur subsequent,” Lilly says. Westwood drew nearer to his scholar and requested about her sexual historical past. “Erm, kissing,” Lilly replied. “Are you a virgin?” Westwood insisted. “Sure.”
It was at this level that Lilly remembers Westwood kissing and touching her intimately with out consent. She tried to push him away to reassure herself that it couldn’t get any worse, however she was overwhelmed by terror. She couldn’t escape, she couldn’t name her mom, and a predator was sitting proper subsequent to her.
Later within the lesson, Westwood launched a brand new job: a intercourse scene from Al Pacino-Michelle Pfeiffer romcom Frankie and Johnny. At first, they simply learn the scene collectively, which Lilly says lulled her right into a false sense of safety. He then modified tack. Taking up the position of Johnny, he instructed her to take away her garments and acted out an change that included touching, kissing, and forcing her hand onto his penis. She remembers it being “essentially the most disgusting second ever.”
It was the primary time Westwood sexually assaulted Lilly, however it established a playbook of predation and energy that might be repeated in future classes. He was additionally fast to coerce Lilly into silence. He made express threats to smash her schooling and profession until she continued along with her classes. Lilly says he would intimidate her by contacting her faculty trainer and the drama school she hoped to attend. He was in common contact along with her mom. Later, he made Lilly signal a contract that claimed she would owe him £36,000 ($45,000) if she broke it.
Lilly felt scared, ashamed, and suicidal. She force-fed herself cookie dough till she vomited to keep away from Westwood’s classes, however gripped by concern, she stored going again.
A month after their first lesson, Westwood raped Lilly on January 19, 2021, after he instructed her to carry out a masturbation scene from Netflix collection Bridgerton. She was left bleeding after the encounter. When she received again residence, she rid herself of his “DNA,” dumping her garments within the washer and scrubbing her pores and skin red-raw within the bathe. It’s a behavior that she has discovered arduous to interrupt years later.
Lilly estimates that Westwood raped her not less than one other 4 or 5 occasions earlier than she ended the teachings in February. The actor repeatedly contacted Lilly’s mom to ask about her attendance and demanded fee for missed tuition. “She clearly has a [drama school] audition on the twenty fifth, so she HAS to attend on the twenty fourth no matter how she feels. If she desires to be an actress, she wants to begin taking issues critically,” he wrote in a single textual content message. “As a profitable, working actor, who has labored for the BBC and Netflix, I truly know what I’m doing and speaking about within the business. So after I affirm slots, I anticipate them to be attended.”
Lilly stored her silence for one more seven months earlier than the floodgates opened in September 2021. Watching Cash Heist one night, she turned to her mom and stated with tears in her eyes: “Mum, I’ve received to let you know one thing.” She was interviewed by police in October 2021, however a stop-start investigation didn’t go to trial till final yr. Westwood denied all costs and appeared unmoved within the dock, even taking notes throughout hearings. As he was sentenced, onlookers noticed him smirking. The choose admonished his “seemingly nonchalant perspective.”
“No Sentence Will Give Me Again My Life“
Lilly believes Westwood’s sentence was lenient. She claims there are different survivors whose instances weren’t heard as a part of the trial. She argues that he can by no means be rehabilitated. Does she suppose it’s doable he offended on the set of Intercourse Training? “I wouldn’t be shocked,” she replies. Deadline understands that Netflix didn’t obtain any complaints about Westwood throughout his 17 appearances on the present between 2019 and 2021.
“No sentence will ever give me again my life,” Lilly says. Within the years after her expertise, she had remedy and took antidepressants, however nonetheless finds it traumatic to make use of tampons and have conversations about intercourse, whereas the thought of falling in love feels distant. “I don’t know what it’s like making like to an individual, I simply know what it’s wish to have a tortured physique,” she says.
Regardless of belief points with lecturers, she has dug deep to rediscover her love of performing and is now finding out her craft at college. “I nonetheless have a ardour for drama, however it’s arduous,” she continues. “I wish to do some political theater, one thing that opens the world to audiences and tells them what occurred.”
In case you’ve been a sufferer of sexual abuse within the UK, the nation’s Nationwide Well being Service recommends in search of help from a sexual assault referral middle. Find your closest middle right here. Voluntary organizations together with Rape Disaster and Ladies’s Assist can even provide help.
