Sex Education actor Alexander Westwood jailed after raping teenagers in class

Alexander Westwood, 24, was on Tuesday sentenced to more than 15 years behind bars after he was found guilty in December of 26 offences against women and children. An actor who starred in the Netflix hit Sex Education has been jailed for committing more than two dozen sexual offences, including against two teenage girls who came to him for acting lessons.

Alex Westwood, 24, was on Tuesday sentenced to more than 15 years behind bars after he was found guilty in December of 26 offences against women and children following a trial in which he was branded a “rotten apple” and “supreme manipulator”.

Sentencing, Judge Neil Chawla KC said Westwood had carried out “sordid sexual criminality” over an 11-year period and had been “nonchalant, bordering on arrogant” throughout the trial. “This was a campaign of sexual offending, lasting just over a decade with devastating consequences,” the judge said.

“You used your minor celebrity status as an act to prey on impressionable and naive young girls under the guise of acting lessons.”. Westwood, who also starred in the BBC series Doctors, smirked in the dock at Wolverhampton Crown Court as details of his “predatory and deviant” behaviour towards five people, four of whom were children when he abused them, were read out.

Prosecutor Andrew Wallace previously told the court of two teenage girls who came to Westwood for help with acting, only to be “forced to act out the most inappropriate scenes” and systematically abused over years. “As fame beckons, he met two impressionable 16-year-olds and used his revered position to abuse them,” Mr Wallace said.

Between November 2020 and September 2021, the suspect raped and sexually assaulted one of the pupils, who was going to drama school in Birmingham, repeatedly. Mr Wallace said Westwood would touch her, touch himself and rape her. His abuse of the second teenager overlapped, occurring between May and August 2021.

Other instances of abuse included forcing a young girl, who he systematically abused for seven years, to drink his urine. Judge Chawla said Westwood had “distorted sexual thinking”, adding: “You have failed to show any remorse and you have shown little or no insight into the impact of your offending had on your victims.

“The jury rejected your story of blaming the victims. You are a serial sexual offender and it became part of your lifestyle.”. Three of Westwood’s female victims were in court on Tuesday and supported each other as they read statements detailing the effect his abuse had on them.