A perverted ‘healer’ who told women
their ‘sexual energy points’ were blocked then molested them was jailed
for 16 years yesterday.
Michael
Ireland, 60, claimed to be skilled at a host of alternative therapies
including Reiki, a Japanese form of hands-on treatment.
Over
a quarter of a century, the charismatic conman targeted a string of
vulnerable women and girls, telling them he would help them with
‘special healing’ which could be carried out only when no one else was
around.
Predator: Michael Ireland, left, toured churches targeting women. Victim Joanne Mulholland, right, put her trust in the 'healer'
Last night one of his victims waived
her right to anonymity and told the Daily Mail of her terror as Ireland
sexually assaulted her during therapy for a painful back.
Divorcee Joanne Mulholland, 41, said:
‘I was devastated. I felt angry and terribly betrayed. I had trusted
him as a professional and yet he took advantage of me in the worst
possible way.’
Ireland, from Stockport, initially denied all allegations against him.
But
in January, as his trial was due to begin at Minshull Street Crown
Court in Manchester, he pleaded guilty to 25 offences including indecent
assault and sexual activity with a child committed against eight
victims over a 25-year period.
Yesterday several were in court with their families. One woman left in tears as the catalogue of abuse was spelt out.
The
court heard that Ireland told one woman her problem was that her
breasts and vagina were ‘dead’ and he could help by activating them.
Another was instructed to touch him intimately to get her ‘energy flowing’ again.
One ‘patient’ – a 15-year-old girl – took an overdose to gain ‘respite’ from his abuse.
Ireland
toured spiritualist churches offering therapies ranging from Reiki – in
which he claimed to be a master – to chakra balancing and crystal
healing at £15 a session.
On
his website, he also proclaimed himself a clairvoyant giving regular
demonstrations of mediumship as well as an adept shamanic healer.
Final admission: Ireland consistently denied
wrongdoing until the day of his scheduled trial at Manchester Minshull
Street Crown Court when he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing eight
women over 25 years
The site failed to mention his conviction for indecently assaulting a girl aged under 14 when he was a teenager.
Mrs Mulholland, a mother of three and IT graduate, first saw Ireland in October 2009 after he offered to cure her back pain.
‘He said to reach my back he needed
to feel inside me,’ she said. ‘I felt my heart thumping because I knew
it wasn’t right. Yet, as I lay there on my own on the healing couch I
felt incredibly vulnerable. I couldn’t wait to leave.’
Ireland told Miss Mulholland, from Bolton, that the reason she was in so much pain was because of an ‘energy blockage’.
‘It sounds naive but when he said he
was freeing one blockage and his hands wandered inside my bra, I told
myself it was necessary,’ she said. ‘But when on the fourth visit he put
his hands inside my pants, I never went back.’
Ireland would tell women
‘conventional Reiki will not work but I have a method a little bit
controversial’, prosecutor Darren Preston said.
On another occasion he told a woman –
who had considered him a ‘mentor’ – that he needed to blow into her
mouth to ‘rid her demons’.
Another victim, aged 39, met Ireland
at a spiritualist church where he ‘scanned’ her body before suggesting
he came to his flat for regular sessions. He told her that her chakra
points were broken but could be released through his touch.
Ireland – who sometimes stripped
naked – also told her that he was impotent, took her hand and put it
inside his trousers, telling her it would ‘get the energy flowing’.
Ireland, described by victims as a
‘very strong powerful person’ who had a ‘presence’, was arrested last
July after victims eventually went to police.
Jailing him, Judge Mushtaq Khokhar
said many of his victims had lost confidence and blamed themselves for
being ‘gullible and naïve’.
Afterwards one of them said: ‘I’m
glad that he can’t do it to anybody else. It’s been a living nightmare
and I’ve not had any sort of life since it happened.’
Another said she had been unable to work since the abuse. ‘I don’t go out of the house, I have flashbacks and panic attacks.’
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