A schoolteacher told today (wed) how an osteopath

A schoolteacher told today (wed) how an osteopath lashed her buttocks with a wooden coathanger claiming it could cure her backpain.

The pretty blonde also revealed how Ian Southcott, 37, repeatedly rammed his fingers into her vagina.

And on one occasion the 30-year-old said she felt him rubbing himself against her naked skin with his erect penis.

The court has heard how Southcott called the techniques he used PV and PR – standing for ‘per vaginam’ and ‘per rectum.

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But when they failed Southcott asked her to bring in a coathanger so that he could perform a ‘nerve block test’ on her buttocks, it was claimed.

The test allegedly involved whipping her bottom until it left her sore and bruised.

Southcott would usually lock the door at the surgery in Bermondsey and he never offered a chaperone during some 160 ‘therapy’ sessions, it was said.

After Christmas 1997, she said Southcott embarked on ‘PR’ – an attempt to manipulate the teacher’s coccyx bone by inserting his finger into her bottom.

But in June 1998 the teacher was told off for slipping on a ruler while she was marking books.

She said Southcott was not pleased:

‘He said that everything he had done had been knocked back.

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As a result the teacher had to increase her sessions to two hours, once a week.

The weekly cost of pnds stlg 116 strained her salary, she told the court.

And Southcott introduced a new ‘therapy’, she told the court.

‘He said my hips weren’t aligned and I couldn’t get it right.

He mentioned there is a treatment he could use to do this but he would only want to do so as a last resort.

‘He called it a nerve block test,’ the woman said, adding that she had never heard of it before.

Southcott drew a grid-shaped diagram to explain that she was suffering from a condition of ‘blocked nerves.

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By finding out which nerves were blocked, he would be able to adjust her spine to end her pain, she told the court.

She said the osteopath explained: ‘If you identify the blocked area you can treat the spine by clicking it into place.

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To justify the procedure he showed her a picture of a middle-aged man, and expert in the field, called Professor Randell.

Southcott said he had seen the professor use the nerve block test while he was a medical student, the court heard.

‘He seemed like a senior osteopath,’ the woman said, so she agreed the treatment.

The woman was fearful of having her bottom ‘numbed’ by Southcott, but she went on:

‘I was told there was no alternative.

I said why can’t you use ice.

I can’t remember what the answer was but it wasn’t possible.

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In June 1999, Southcott booked the teacher in for three sessions of ‘the nerve block test.

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‘He told me it would be easier to wear a skirt, and asked me if I had any skirts that were checked.

‘He said that one with a dogtooth pattern on it would be a good one to wear.

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Southcott explained the pattern would imprint itself on her bottom, making his job easier.

On June 7, the woman was told to stand, leaning over onto his treatment bench.

She said Southcott warned her it was going to be ‘really painful’ and told her to stand still and not to move.

‘I got in position and he started after he asked ‘Ready?”

The woman, who was wearing knickers and stockings, was hit over her skirt at first.

‘It was very systematic.

He would hit each one of the areas he had sketched in his grid diagram and then he would hit one side, then the other.

‘Then he would go a bit further down, and then the same further down.

One set of ‘hits’ would be about 15 or 16,’ she said.

After a while of hitting her over her skirt, he would then lift up the garment, and hit her naked backside, she told the court.

‘He started off quite gently.

He hit harder when he picked the skirt up.

It was fairly hard,’ she said.

The beating lasted half an hour, the court heard.

She then went home and rubbed cream into her sore bottom.

‘I looked in the mirror and it was very red and stinging,’ she said.

Then normal osteopathy sessions followed and, after Southcott twisted the woman’s spine she heard a loud click.

But there was 20 per cent more work that needed to be done.

‘The only way to get the last 20 per cent was to use a stick.

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But before that he stimulated her clitoris with his fingers.

‘I told him how much it hurt me – he was scratching.

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Southcott’s response was to cut the thumb of his rubber glove.

‘He said maybe skin would be softer,’ she said.

Finally, Southcott asked his patient to bring in a stick and booked her in for appointments in October last year.

She brought a broken wooden coathanger from home to achieve what the osteopath had described as the last 20 percent.

‘It wasn’t the same as before.

It was a lot worse.

The hitting went on between half four and five o’clock.

He would hit over my skirt, then without my skirt, over my tights, then without them.

Then he would hit me while I was bare.

‘I did say it really, really was hurting and asked him could he not use his hand to numb some of it first.

‘So he was using his hand some of the time as well, rather than using a stick.

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Southcott then speeded up the treatment, calling it ‘rapid fire’.

‘It was very intense, it seemed to be going faster and faster, whirring.

The pin pricks were more and more, there was more hitting.

She said she could not count the number of times she was hit on her bare skin, but said he seemed to hit each buttock 15 times, before he would ‘test’ if her backside had gone numb.

‘After some time I was really not feeling well.

I was feeling hot and was in a lot of pain.

I just didn’t know what was happening.

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But Southcott would tell her ‘we can’t stop now – we’ve got this far’ she said.

While her buttocks ‘were really stinging, really, really sore,’ Southcott then embarked on a further act, thrusting his fingers into her vagina.

‘I couldn’t really stand still, it was so uncomfortable.

I was flinching more and more.

‘I can’t remember what was said, but he asked me to move my legs apart and he inserted his finger and started ramming his finger in and out of my vagina.

‘It was like a ramming in and out, not completely in and out but also up and down inside.

‘At one point I remember him standing right behind me.

I remember feeling something hard against my skin.

‘I now believe it could have been an erection,’ she said.

She added that as she left the surgery she felt ‘really upset’ and ‘dreadful.

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Southcott, of (69) Princes Plain, Bromley Common, south-east London denies seven charges of indecent assault and two charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm between May 1 1998 and 11 October 1999.

The trial continues.

ends

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