Editor’s note: This story contains details of sexual abuse some readers may find upsetting.
Alexander Westwood was quick to brag about his acting credentials. His Instagram profile, which remains public, features him grinning on the set of Sex Education alongside the Netflix series’ star Asa Butterfield. Blood-spattered selfies show him costumed as a Great War soldier on location for BBC crime drama Father Brown. Only last year, he walked the red carpet for a Rebel Moon: Part Two screening, thanking Netflix for a “lovely evening.”
The posts give the impression of a man who had cracked an ultra-competitive industry. At least this was the impression he left on a mother who encountered Westwood in 2020 and was persuaded by his offer to provide acting lessons for her 16-year-old daughter. Lilly, a pseudonym we are using to protect the identity of the survivor, had an acting itch she had wanted to scratch for as long as she could remember.
Now nearly 20 years old, Lilly looks back on the decision to accept Westwood’s tutelage as a moment that defines her young life. It’s not a reach to say that it could be a storyline ripped straight from Sex Education, a drama that deals artfully with issues of abuse and consent. It certainly speaks to broader issues around abuses of power in the entertainment industry.
What was meant to be a dream opportunity soon turned into a nightmare ordeal. Within weeks of attending his classes, Westwood raped Lilly and weaponized his perceived power to ensure she stayed silent about his crimes for months. It turned out this was a pattern of behavior and Lilly wasn’t alone in her suffering. Last week, he was jailed for 15-and-a-half years after being convicted of 26 counts of sexual assault and rape. There were five victims, including one other he met through acting tuition. Described by a judge as a sex offender by lifestyle, Westwood was sent down to the sound of applause from the UK courtroom’s public gallery. “If an actor goes off stage, you need to clap,” Lilly’s mother said at the time.
Lilly, who gave evidence at Wolverhampton Crown Court, is telling Deadline her story for the first time since the trial concluded. In a startling interview, in which she mourns for lost teenage years, Lilly speaks bravely and unsparingly about the trauma she experienced at the hands of a man who she tells us used his minor celebrity status to “take her virginity”. She is determined, however, that he will not rob her of her passion for performing — and the career she sees before her.
“Undress In Front Of Me”
Lilly says her first lessons at Westwood’s home in December 2020 started without suspicion. He talked to her about the industry, helped prepare her for studying acting at college, and introduced her to some monologues, including a scene from Legally Blonde. For their third or fourth lesson, Lilly was told to learn her lines and come prepared with a costume. This struck her as being slightly unusual, but she accepted her task because Westwood made his request in a way that “seemed normal” to her.
After performing her first monologue, Westwood told Lilly to change into her costume. She motioned for the bathroom. “No, undress in front of me,” came the reply. “When you’re in that moment, your brain freezes,” Lilly recalls. Shaking with fear, Lilly told her tutor that she was uncomfortable and considered making a bolt for the door, but she was worried about his physical threat. In the end, she remembers turning away from Westwood and quickly changing into her costume. Lilly performed her piece and changed back into her clothes, again all under Westwood’s gaze.
“I was trying to say to myself, ‘It’s fine, you’re ok.’ But of course, it was not ok. Imagine being in a room with a man of 21 and you’re just a frightened 16-year-old. You don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Lilly says. Westwood drew closer to his student and asked about her sexual history. “Erm, kissing,” Lilly replied. “Are you a virgin?” Westwood insisted. “Yes.”
It was at this point that Lilly recalls Westwood kissing and touching her intimately without consent. She tried to push him away to reassure herself that it couldn’t get any worse, but she was overwhelmed by terror. She couldn’t escape, she couldn’t call her mother, and a predator was sitting right next to her.
Later in the lesson, Westwood introduced a new task: a sex scene from Al Pacino-Michelle Pfeiffer romcom Frankie and Johnny. At first, they just read the scene together, which Lilly says lulled her into a false sense of security. He then changed tack. Taking on the role of Johnny, he told her to remove her clothes and acted out an exchange that included touching, kissing, and forcing her hand onto his penis. She recalls it being “the most disgusting moment ever.”
It was the first time Westwood sexually assaulted Lilly, but it established a playbook of predation and power that would be repeated in future lessons. He was also quick to coerce Lilly into silence. He made explicit threats to ruin her education and career unless she continued with her lessons. Lilly says he would intimidate her by contacting her school teacher and the drama college she was hoping to attend. He was in regular contact with her mother. Later, he made Lilly sign a contract that claimed she would owe him £36,000 ($45,000) if she broke it.
Lilly felt scared, ashamed, and suicidal. She force-fed herself cookie dough until she vomited to avoid Westwood’s lessons, but gripped by fear, she kept going back.
A month after their first lesson, Westwood raped Lilly on January 19, 2021, after he told her to perform a masturbation scene from Netflix series Bridgerton. She was left bleeding after the encounter. When she got back home, she rid herself of his “DNA,” dumping her clothes in the washing machine and scrubbing her skin red-raw in the shower. It’s a habit that she has found hard to break years later.
Lilly estimates that Westwood raped her at least another four or five times before she ended the lessons in February. The actor repeatedly contacted Lilly’s mother to ask about her attendance and demanded payment for missed tuition. “She obviously has a [drama school] audition on the 25th, so she HAS to attend on the 24th regardless of how she feels. If she wants to be an actress, she needs to start taking things seriously,” he wrote in one text message. “As a successful, working actor, who has worked for the BBC and Netflix, I actually know what I am doing and talking about in the industry. So when I confirm slots, I expect them to be attended.”
Lilly kept her silence for another seven months before the floodgates opened in September 2021. Watching Money Heist one evening, she turned to her mother and said with tears in her eyes: “Mum, I’ve got to tell you something.” She was interviewed by police in October 2021, but a stop-start investigation did not go to trial until last year. Westwood denied all charges and appeared unmoved in the dock, even taking notes during hearings. As he was sentenced, onlookers saw him smirking. The judge admonished his “seemingly nonchalant attitude.”
“No Sentence Will Give Me Back My Life“
Lilly believes Westwood’s sentence was lenient. She claims there are other survivors whose cases were not heard as part of the trial. She argues that he can never be rehabilitated. Does she think it’s possible he offended on the set of Sex Education? “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she replies. Deadline understands that Netflix did not receive any complaints about Westwood during his 17 appearances on the show between 2019 and 2021.
“No sentence will ever give me back my life,” Lilly says. In the years after her experience, she had therapy and took antidepressants, but still finds it traumatic to use tampons and have conversations about sex, while the idea of falling in love feels remote. “I don’t know what it’s like making love to a person, I just know what it’s like to have a tortured body,” she says.
Despite trust issues with teachers, she has dug deep to rediscover her love of acting and is now studying her craft at university. “I still have a passion for drama, but it’s hard,” she continues. “I want to do some political theater, something that opens the world to audiences and tells them what happened.”
If you’ve been a victim of sexual abuse in the UK, the country’s National Health Service recommends seeking support from a sexual assault referral center. Locate your closest center here. Voluntary organizations including Rape Crisis and Women’s Aid can also offer support.
