A woman who claims she was raped by her sex therapist says her eight-year fight for justice has exposed holes in the British system, amid fears that rogue practitioners are operating unchecked.
Ella Janneh was awarded more than £200,000 in damages on Wednesday after filing a civil claim alleging sex coach Mike Lousada raped and sexually assaulted her during a therapy session in 2016.
A court ruled that he put 37-year-old Ms Janneh into a childlike state, causing a panic attack before he penetrated her and committed several sexual acts, to which she could not consent.
Now forced to take her case to civil court, Ms Janneh has warned that a lack of current regulation allows therapists to have “unchecked power”, exposing vulnerable people to harm.
Mrs. Janneh told me The independent her eight-year battle had been “brutal and all-consuming.”
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“I can’t tell you that this has robbed me of the hours, the days, the months of my life,” she said. “This is the better half of a decade. I’m just the average person on the street, this shouldn’t have been my life, to hold one man responsible.
“It doesn’t even stop him from practicing, this doesn’t limit his freedom to harm another person – at every stage it’s completely, justly, broken.”
Lousada, who rose to fame after starring in a book by feminist author Naomi Wolf, has been a celebrity sex coach for more than a decade. His reach has extended to national television, press articles and a series of Durex videos.
Ms Janneh contacted him in 2016 to help with panic attacks she suffered during sex as a result of sexual abuse as a child. She had had two previous sessions with him in 2011 and 2012, when no sexual acts took place.
According to her testimony, his website “looked really legitimate and professional; as if he were the leading therapist in the field.”
There was no indication on his website that penetration was part of his therapy plans, which states that he practices “psychosexual somatic therapy.”
However, Lousada told the court that part of his practice involves “therapeutically assisted orgasm, and intervaginal massage or full sexual surrogacy.”
During the attack, he allegedly said to Ms Janneh: “You have a problem with penetration, so I think we need to use my penis energetically to absorb the trauma. The head of the penis can act like a laser beam and burn the trauma. Send the trauma to me”.
A witness statement from Lousada’s ex-wife claims that he learned the “technique” of penetration from a tantric guru named Shantam Nityama just two weeks before his session with Ella.
Despite losing the civil case, there is nothing stopping Lousada from continuing to practice, even though he claims he has not treated anyone since the lawsuit started.
Although impersonating a doctor can lead to a prison sentence, therapists and counselors are not protected terms and anyone can use them. There are no requirements for private therapists to be regulated by an official body.
In a 2019 podcast he talks about ambitions to work with the NHS, although it is not clear whether he ever did so.
Lousada attempted to create his own professional organization, the Association of Somatic and Integrative Sexologists, to create codes of ethics for his field.
However, Tuesday’s verdict showed that Lousada did not even adhere to these codes and left the organization together with Ms Janneh after the incident.
Documents presented to the court show that NHS staff who treated Ella at the sexual assault referral clinic had serious concerns about Lousada’s method of using sex as therapy.
An email said: “While the trust would normally pursue these concerns through security and regulatory channels, the alleged events occurred outside the trust’s jurisdiction and apparently without an adequate regulatory framework.”
In another they wrote: “I know an allegation of rape is extremely difficult to bring to justice, but there is so much here that speaks against unprofessional and harmful practices that need to be challenged in the wider public interest. I guess my concern is that this won’t be lost if the focus is too narrow on the rape allegation.”
After Monday’s ruling, Catriona Rubens, Leigh Day’s lawyer who represented Ella, warned that more rogue therapists could be operating due to the lack of regulation.
“There’s nothing that can prevent this. The nature of a lot of therapy is that a lot of people go to therapy when they feel vulnerable,” she said. “Regulation is completely lacking in the UK at the moment, unless a therapist chooses to register with a body, nothing stops them from having shiny, impressive websites calling them trauma informed therapists and there is no protection as to what they mean and I think members of the The public does not know that there is no regulation.”
Ms Rueben said a first safeguard could be changes in legislation to make coercion within therapy a criminal act.
In May 2018, the Crown Prosecution Service told Ms Janneh they would not pursue a criminal conviction that would force her into a civil battle. To succeed in a civil case, you must meet a lower burden of proving that the allegations are true on the “balance of probability,” rather than the criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
She said The independent she also felt “completely mistreated” by police when she made her first complaint.
“I think they did the bare minimum with my case,” she said. ‘I didn’t feel like they took me seriously.
“No one wants to rape his face, no one wants to say, he digitally penetrated me and spit on me; to have my sex life, my private life and my genitals discussed as a matter of course in multiple rooms of people.
“But that’s what it took, to turn myself into a monster, to be able to start a conversation about a justice system that doesn’t work.”
On the failure of the CPS, she added: “How can you ensure that this man of power and authority continues to have access to vulnerable people? When I left his clinic and wanted to die? How do you arrange that?”
The CPS said: “Criminal and civil cases require different standards of evidence. In criminal cases we must prove beyond reasonable doubt that an individual is guilty and after careful consideration of the evidence in this case we have concluded that there was no realistic prospect of conviction – a decision later supported by two independent investigations. ”
Following the court ruling, Lousada said in a statement: “I have told both the police and the court what happened that day, and you will understand that I am very disappointed that my evidence has been rejected.
“I don’t do this kind of work anymore and haven’t since the incident in question. I tried to help Mrs. Janneh and it was never my intention to cause her any harm. I have always regretted the outcome and the consequences for her, and I wish her the best for the future.”
Rape Crisis provides support to those affected by rape and sexual abuse. You can call them on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland and 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland, or visit their website at www.rapecrisis.org.uk. If you are in the US, you can call Rainn at 800-656-HOPE (4673)