A 29-year-old hospital worker who has been accused of demanding oral sex from a 15-year-old girl also looked after an 18-year-old who killed herself, a court has heard.
Alisha Watts, a star pupil at the prestigious Kendrick School in Reading, Berkshire, was found clutching her teddy bear and surrounded by notes to her loved ones in February 2018.
She had been a patient of Eric Kusi at a Berkshire hospital’s mental health unit a year before her death.
A 15-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has accused Kusi of demanding sexual acts from her while she was at the hospital as well as kissing and cuddling her.
She added that he used to visit Ms Watt’s room a few doors down which made her jealous because he was not talking to her ‘as much’ as he was to Ms Watts.
Kusi told the girl he was carrying out the sexual acts ‘to help her’ and asked her to promise not to tell anyone.
He is on trial for six counts of having sexual activity with a person with a mental disorder at Reading Crown Court. None of the charges relate to Ms Watts.
Alisha Watts, pictured, was found clutching her teddy bear and surrounded by notes to her loved ones a year after leaving the Berkshire hospital
‘All the things he was saying to me, he was saying to Alisha,’ the 15-year-old said in a police interview which was heard in court.
‘He would go to Alisha’s room a few days after she came. He would go into her room like he was doing with me. He was talking to her, he was not talking to me as much. It made me feel jealous.
‘He used to tell me I was mature for my age. He was saying it to her when he said it to me. I just felt like he was a liar. I knew that he was doing it to someone else.
‘He said he liked and loved me, not Alisha. He said, “I would rather go to prison for you”.’
She added that Kusi said he was asking her for sexual acts ‘to help her’.
‘He was saying that the reason that he was doing what he was doing was to help me and to make me feel good and to help me feel better, as a distraction,’ she said.
‘He said we were a team and I promised him I would not say anything.’
Eric Kusi looked after her. A 15-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has alleged that he asked her for sexual acts and kissed and cuddled her
Kusi had also saved her name as ‘Sweet’ into his phone and told her they would make a trip to Africa together and have four children, she said.
He also said she had a ‘fat stomach’, which she said had left her with ‘no self-esteem’.
The court heard that the girl had also cut the date of Kusi’s birth into both her arms to mark the age difference.
Kusi was required to visit the girl four times every hour as she was a level three patient. He always gave her friendly hugs at the end of each shift before the abuse started.
Ms Watts was described as ‘a beautiful girl’
‘Perfectionist’ Ms Watts was found by her long-time social worker, Leanne Palethorpe, who had grown concerned the night before following a string of emails.
Assistant coroner for Berkshire Alison McCormick described the girl’s death as one that ‘suggests that this was a careful and meticulously planned suicide’.
She had been in and out of care facilities since the age of 15, after her mother had got increasingly worried about her claims of feeling suicidal.
Between the ages of 15 and 18 she was moved between multiple care units and services including Southampton Priory and Prospect Park Hospital before settling at a supported living facility in Reading.
Prosecutor Walton Hornsby, referring to the case of the 15-year-old girl, said there were a relatively small number of troubled adolescent, teenage girls in the unit, ‘most of them were in there because of serious disorders, serious mental health issues, including self-harm and suicidal intention’.
‘The defendant was kind, he was an attractive young man and he befriended the complainant and that in itself would not have resulted in his appearance at Reading Crown Court.
‘That kindliness and friendliness crossed the line, from being a comforting presence, a reassuring presence, the defendant became a sexual partner to the complainant.’
The trial continues.
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