Charles Butler, 64, was living a secret life in a flat where he held bondage sex parties financed by money stolen from the NHS, the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday. The professor had been awarded the MBE in 2006.
He was jailed for three years for fraudulently claiming almost £1,50,000 on expenses as a pharmaceutical expert to the Department of Health. While investigating the fraud, the police raided a two-bedroom flat Butler owned in Whitechapel, East London.
The sleuths found drugs including Ecstasy, cocaine, crystal meth, cannabis and Rohypnol, which is a date-rape drug. The flat was also filled with ‘sado-masochistic sexual apparatus’ and pornography.
Daily Mail said that it is understood that Butler hosted sex game parties at the flat while his wife and children who lived at their family home in Reading didn’t have any clue about it.
Southwark Crown Court was told that Butler had run a successful string of chemists across Berkshire, as well as becoming a visiting professor at Reading University.
The police had raided both Butler’s Reading and London properties. “They battered open the door and the defendant was found inside in what had been specially adapted to be a sexual bondage venue,” Deanna Heer, prosecuting, was quoted as telling the court. A giant harness, hoist, chains, sex toys and hardcore pornography filled both bedrooms and the sitting room of the £1,50,000 flat.
Published 30 March 2010, 14:55 IST