Nicholas Gully, 47, pictured in his mugshot, was arrested after raping a 14-year-old boy in a public toilets at a leisure centre and was jailed for 17 years today
A Harley Street sex therapist who raped a child at a leisure centre for the ‘thrill’ was branded a ‘depraved predator’ as he was sentenced to 17 years in prison today.
Nicholas Gully, 47, was arrested after raping a 14-year-old boy in a public toilets at a leisure centre just two days before he was due to emigrate to Thailand.
At his trial the boy told the court he had been to the gym and was waiting for a lift home from his mother.
While he was waiting Gully made eye contact with him and then approached him in the public toilets.
The teenager told police he tried to escape his advances by going into a cubicle but Gully followed him in.
The married father-of-two, who treats patients suffering from sex and love addiction, then raped the 14-year-old.
After a five day trial at Hove Crown Court a jury found him guilty of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault.
Today he was sentenced to 17 years and told he must serve a minimum of 11 years before he would be eligible for release.
Judge Christine Henson said the psychotherapist had derived ‘a depraved sexual thrill’ from raping the child and was a ‘predatory manipulator.’
She said: ‘Your victim was particularly vulnerable because of his age. He has suffered severe psychological harm because of the serious sexual abuse by you.’
Gully, of Rottingdean, East Sussex, was sentenced to two and half years for the first assault, four years for the second and 11 years for the rape.
Gully (left in July, and right on social media) was watching the boy who had been to the gym and was waiting for a lift home from his mother, before chasing him into a cubicle and raping him
One Britain’s leading psychotherapists treating patients for sex and love addictions, he has worked in Harley Street and the Priory Clinic.
The jury heard he raped the boy in January this year just two days before he was due to leave Britain and begin a new life in Thailand.
He saw the boy waiting for his mother in the foyer of the King Alfred Leisure Centre in Hove, East Sussex, and made inappropriate comments while pretending to talk to some on the phone.
The teenager said the therapist was repeatedly attempting to make eye contact with him and he overheard him say there was a ‘sexy boy’ nearby
The teenager said the therapist was repeatedly attempting to make eye contact with him and he overheard him say there was a ‘sexy boy’ nearby.
The boy claimed that he went into the public toilets to escape the attentions of the older man.
But Gully allegedly followed him into the bathroom and stood beside him at the urinal and touched him inappropriately.
When the boy tried to escape by entering a cubicle Gully followed him in there and shut the door.
In a 10 minute ordeal he was then allegedly subjected to a terrifying rape.
Giving evidence behind a screen the teenager said: ‘I was trying to avoid him and the toilet was the only place I could lock myself away from him.’
He said he went into the bathroom area to use the urinal but Gully came up beside him and touched him.
The boy said he immediately ran to the cubicle and locked himself in and waited for Gully to go.
But when he opened the door to check whether the older man had gone Gully stepped into the cubicle with him.
The boy told the court: ‘When he entered he did so quite aggressively. I was intimidated. He said for me to be quiet. He said: ‘Shush’ like he was angry. He scared me. I thought he had some sort of weapon in his bag.’
The boy said Gully then committed a sex act on him before he was made to carry out the same act on him.
Hove Crown Court heard the child was too scared to cry out and fight back during the assault.
The married father-of-two, who treats patients suffering from sex and love addiction, was today sentenced to 17 years at Hove Crown Court (pictured) and told he must serve a minimum of 11 years before he would be eligible for release.
But afterwards he called and texted his friends in tears and told them he wanted to kill himself after the sexual assault.
He told one: ‘I feel disgusting. I want to die. This is so f******d up. I did not even struggle because I thought he had a knife.
The victim thought he was going to die – Gully, who had an office in Hove, pictured, claimed the sex was consensual but a jury disagreed
‘Maybe I deserve it. Maybe he thought I wanted it. He’s just so disgusting and he should pay.’
His friends urged him to tell his mother and the police and he eventually he confided in his aunt who alerted his family.
In court Gully admitted having sexual contact with the boy but claimed he had consented.
He told the jury he but thought the boy was over the legal age and thought he was an ‘easy pick-up’.
Gully, claimed to be unaware of the boy’s age until he was arrested, and when told he said ‘this is bad.’
Beverley Cherrill, defending, said most people would look at Gully with a sense of disgust but she urged the jury not to judge his morals.
‘There is sexual contact,’ she said. ‘That is accepted. But he isn’t charged with being amoral. He is not charged with grooming a child. He is accused of rape – of having sex without consent.’
Miss Cherrill said, asked the jury why Gully would risk everything for a casual hook up with he could just as easily have used an app such as Grindr.
She said: ‘This was an easy pick up. It was a nice way to spend 10 minutes before he had a shower.’
Gully told jurors the boy initiated sexual contact and wanted to perform oral sex on him, to which Gully ‘pushed him away’ after ‘ten or 15 seconds.’
After the case the victim’s mother said she was pleased with the sentence.
She said: ‘It is a serious sentence and means he is removed and cannot commit any other offences.’