My Therapist used me as a sex slave

- 20 September 2008;Fabulous Magazine

ANOREXICS ANGELA WALSH AND ADRIA FLITTER CHECKED INTO A TOP EATING DISORDERS CLINIC IN SEARCH OF A CURE. BUT INSTEAD THEY WERE SEXUALLY ABUSED BY THE CLINIC’S BOSS

When teenager Angela Walsh fell in love with an older man, she thought it would be forever. She believed every word he whispered to her and trusted him totally when he asked for sex.

There was good reason for Angela's blind faith – she was dangerously ill with anorexia, and her 41-year-old lover was the eating disorders expert who was supposed to be helping her get well.

Instead, the vulnerable 5st youngster was easy prey for evil clinic manager and senior nurse David Britten.

"I really loved him and I thought he loved me. He showered me with affection, which he knew all anorexics crave. But he was just taking advantage of a sick young girl," she says now.

What Angela didn't know then was that she wasn't the only fragile young patient Britten was having a sexual relationship with.

He is suspected of abusing 135 anorexics in his care at the renowned NHS Peter Dally clinic in London's Westminster, where he was clinical manager between 1996 and 2002.

Some girls were still prepubescent because of their illness. One woman is thought to have had his baby.

Britten would gain their trust by falsely claiming to be a psychotherapist and then offer them one-to-one counseling

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A recent NHS report into his activities described him as a "manipulative predator" who "deliberately targeted vulnerable patients, grooming them for his own sexual satisfaction."

Angela, now 31, an administrator from Reading, was one of several victims who gave evidence leading to Britten being struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council in 2004.

She was 19 when she was first admitted to his clinic in 1996, following a four-year battle against anorexia. From the moment she arrived, all talk among the other girls was of the charismatic clinic boss.

"I kept hearing how wonderful David Britten was. They were mesmerised by him, he had a godlike status," she remembers.

"He had so much power. He would overrule and undermine other staff. If he disagreed with their decisions, he would soon make sure they changed their minds."

A few weeks after she was admitted, Britten targeted Angela.

"He said I was special and that he could help me recover with some one-to-one counselling in his office. It was so flattering to be singled out by him," she explains.

So Angela began to see Britten once a week for an hour-long session.

"I told him how I felt unattractive and how disgusted I was when I looked in the mirror," she says.

"As I spoke, often in tears, he would hold my hand or stroke my hair. But it didn't seem offensive or wrong. He seemed sweet and caring. He made me feel he was the only one on my side, and the sessions became the most important thing in my life. All I cared about was spending time with him."

After struggling with her feelings for months, Angela decided to confess all.

"I remember the moment so well. We were in his office and I told him I had feelings for him I couldn't ignore any more," she says.

"Instead of being horrified and telling me I'd need to change to another counsellor, he stroked my face and said he felt the same way. Then he leaned in and kissed me.

"Our relationship carried on from there. He created a dependency which made me need a regular fix. All the girls were desperate to be with him. There were always queues outside his office. But I was the one who was his girlfriend.

"I would have done anything to be with him, to have some affection from him."

A year after their first kiss, Angela slept with Britten for the first time in his office.

"Looking back, it's unbelievable that this could happen in an NHS clinic. But even David's colleagues were under his spell," she says.

"Anyone who raised suspicions was relocated by David, or life was made so difficult for them that they left. He had a dark side and would exclude people, making them feel unwelcome and unwanted."

It later emerged that Britten, who is married, manipulated all his victims in the same way.

He would take advantage of their low self-esteem to persuade them to have sex with him – even telling some it was essential for them to relate to men sexually if they were going to recover.

Angela spent four years in his care. In this time she never fully beat her illness and her weight fluctuated between 5st and 7st.

Being ‘treated' by Britten set back the recovery of many of his victims by years.

One such patient was Adria Flitter, who was admitted a year after Angela. Then 19, she weighed just 4st.

Just as he had with Angela, Britten targeted her by suggesting one-to-one counselling sessions, then made his move.

"One day, as I was talking, he kissed me on the lips," she remembers. "I was so happy – I believed he truly understood me. He was so attentive and lovely."

Adria spent four years at the clinic where Britten isolated her from other staff.

"I should have been having my weight properly monitored, but David was the only person I saw. He said he was the only one I could trust. I became so dependent on him, I didn't want to get well, as that would mean having to leave him," she recalls.

Britten told Adria to keep their relationship a secret, and assured her she was the only one for him. Like Angela, she had sex with him in his office and her bedroom.

So great was her faith in Britten that when two girls alleged they had been sexually abused by him in 1998, Adria didn't believe it for an instant.

A subsequent investigation cleared him, but in 2001 his reign of abuse at the clinic began to crumble when more victims came forward.

It wasn't long before Britten was on the phone to both Angela and Adria, desperately trying to convince them that the accusations were all lies. But both women began to have their doubts.

When one of Angela's friends from the clinic confessed she had also been in a relationship with Britten, her world fell apart.

"I didn't want to believe her, but deep down I knew she was telling the truth," says Angela. "We sobbed and held each other as we realised how we'd been caught up in his sordid games."

Britten, now 54, was struck off in 2004. After his victims lobbied the Department of Health in 2007, an independent investigation was carried out.

The NHS report was damning, but no criminal charges were brought because all his victims were over 16.

He is now thought to have fled to the Philippines with his Filipino wife Leila, an NHS manager, who has stood by him.

Angela and Adria have now both recovered from anorexia

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Angela's husband of two years is helping her rebuild her life but Adria, now 30, is single and says she finds it hard to trust men after her ordeal.

"If I could have been so wrong about David, who's to say I couldn't be wrong again?" she asks.

They, and solicitor Sarah Harman, who represented them and 11 other victims at the inquiry, are hoping that others will come forward and Britten will be prosecuted for his sex crimes.

"We were abused by someone who was supposed to help us," says Adria. "His victims are still suffering. Why shouldn't he pay the price?"

If you were a victim of David Britten, please contact Sarah Harman at info@harmans-solicitors.co.uk.