Psychic healer and Lewisham mayoral candidate faces jail over sex assaults (From This Is Local London)

Psychic healer and Lewisham mayoral candidate, Graham Dare, faces jail over sex assaults

10:31am Tuesday 6th December 2011 in News By Mark Chandler

Graham Dare was a mayoral candidate for the English Democrats

A SPIRITUAL healer and clairvoyant who once ran to be Lewisham’s mayor is facing jail for sexually assaulting a client, claiming he was trying to “correct energy flow”.

Graham Dare, aged 57, of Taymount Rise, Forest Hill, boasts of celebrity endorsements from TV presenters Melinda Messenger, Kate Thornton and Michaela Strachan.

He claims to have communicated with the spirit of Diana, Princess of Wales, briefly wrote a blog for News Shopper and said he had tracked missing toddler Madeleine McCann to Yemen using his psychic powers.

Blackfriars Crown Court heard Dare preyed on a trusting 31-year-old Japanese student last September when she came for help with migraines.

He groomed her by treating her naked or partially-clothed for three of their six sessions.

Dare, waiving his fee for most of the appointments, fondled her breasts and groin before stripping off and luring her into massaging him.

Blackfriars Crown Court heard the woman was suspicious about his “strange” methods but did not object because she feared causing offence.

Heather Stangoe, prosecuting, said: 'It’s not a crime to trust someone. What is a crime is to take advantage of someone's trust and naivety and to abuse it for your sexual pleasure.'

The victim described how, on one occasion he “concentrated between my legs and he held my nipple”.

Dare told her: “This is the way to correct the energy flow.”

On the final occasion, on September 20, Dare stripped naked while she massaged his arms and legs.

She eventually realised he was masturbating.

The victim said: “I didn't say anything. I was really, really scared.

“I still believed he was a famous healer.

“I was blaming myself because I hadn't paid him and he helped himself to my body.”

Dare insisted he was trying to help the woman, and said she might have been lying due to involvement in “Japanese mafia cults”.

As Dare was convicted of three charges of sexual assault on December 5, jurors heard police investigated another complaint of 'a similar nature' in last April but no charge was brought.

He must sign the sexual offenders' register and will be sentenced on January 6.