Sex Education actor jailed for 15 years after raping and sexually abusing young girls

25 February 2025, 16:07 | Updated: 25 February 2025, 16:37

An actor who appeared in hit Netflix show Sex Education has been jailed for 15-and-a-half years after raping and abusing young girls and boys.

Actor Alexander Westwood, who appeared in Netflix's Sex Education, was found guilty of 26 sex offences against children and pupils he gave acting classes to.

Westwood, from Shropshire, was found guilty of raping a girl who came to him for acting lessons and sexually assaulting a child over an eight year period.

Prosecutors described him as a ‘predator’ and a ‘rotten apple’ whose sexual offending was a ‘lifestyle’.

The 24-year-old used his acting experience to lure young girls in, making them recite Shakespeare naked before abusing them.

The predator told the young girls "It’s just part of acting."

Read more: Man, 37, admits stalking Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas over six-year period

Sentencing Westwood, Judge Neil Chawla said his "campaign of sexual offending" had "devastating consequences for the five victims".

He said: "This was a campaign of sexual offending, lasting just over a decade with devastating consequences.

"You used your minor celebrity status as an act to prey on impressionable and naive young girls under the guise of acting lessons."

Westwood began his vile campaign of abuse when he was just 10 and his victim was six.

Prosecutor Andrew Wallace said this led to years of "the normalisation of sexual abuse" which included touching her breasts and himself and making her watch pornography.

The actor, who starred in BBC show Doctors, forced a young boy to touch himself as part of a "game" when he was 10 and Westwood was 18, and was "highly manipulative and controlling" to another woman who he held down "every few weeks", and told her to lay there despite the victim telling him she did not want to have sex.

Mr Wallace said: "Even before he reached the age of criminal responsibility he exhibited totally inappropriate sexual behaviour. He is a sexual predator, particularly towards children."

The barrister also said Westwood could have faced 77 counts against him, but it would have been "unwieldy" to prosecute so they were condensed down to 26.

One of the teenagers he abused during acting lessons sobbed as she told the sentencing hearing she had started to "despise" acting, a career she had wanted to pursue.

She also said she struggled to shower because she did not like touching her body, adding: "No matter how much I wash, I still feel dirty."

Ordering Westwood to serve at least two-thirds of his 15-and-a-half-year term in prison before he is eligible for parole, Judge Chawla also said he must spend four years on licence.

He was also handed a 26-year restraining order preventing him from contacting the five victims, and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order for the same period.

Judge Chawla also said he had shown Westwood "mercy" by allowing him out on bail after he was convicted to allow him to spend Christmas with his elderly parents, but was on strict conditions to sleep at his home address.

Despite this, he was found in a hotel "in clear breach of the terms of bail" and was taken into custody.

Westwood said "thank you judge" after he was sentenced and ordered back down to the cells while those in the public gallery clapped.