A former North Vancouver man who told a counselling client he was a tantric sex master who could help her with sexual problems has been handed a six-month conditional sentence after being found guilty of sexual assault.
Richard Harold Matthews, 68, was found guilty following a trial in North Vancouver provincial court of sexually assaulting a 29-year-old woman who came to him for counselling in 2013. He was sentenced Jan. 19.
The woman went to see Matthews on a roommate’s recommendation to seek help regarding the break-up of a relationship and a move to another community.
Matthews had no formal training or qualifications as a therapist but had “self-studied tantric teachings and practices and then introduced them to his lay counselling practice,” according to the judge.
“Mr. Matthews saw himself as a person with a skill set that, in his view, allowed him to assist females to reach their full sexual potential,” the judge noted.
During the trial, the woman testified Matthews steered the counselling sessions towards sex therapy, despite her initial reasons for seeking help, and suggested they practise various kinds of massage, along with tantric “ecstasy or fire breathing.” Matthews told the woman the sessions would involve “breaking boundaries, which the victim understood to be mental boundaries,” according to the judge.
But the sessions soon turned physical.
By the third session, “He told her he wanted her to go further and she took this to be a reference to her breathing and mental state.”
Instead, Matthews touched the victim sexually under her clothes without her consent. When she protested, he told her he was touching her “trauma spot” and continued his actions.
The woman left and later exchanged a series of text messages with Matthews expressing her lack of consent and upset at his actions. She later went to police.
Crown counsel asked for a sentence of nine to 12 months followed by probation, arguing the court should give significant weight to the fact the incident involved a breach of trust by a person acting as a therapist.
During the trial, Matthews suggested the woman’s accusation that she didn’t consent to the sexual touching was false and the result of being “overcome by guilt resulting from her Catholic upbringing.”
Matthews’ lawyer argued during a sentencing hearing the touching was brief and did not result in any sexual gratification for Matthews, noting “the victim was an adult who had willingly engaged in learning tantric sexual techniques.”
In handing down her sentence, Judge Joanne Challenger said Matthews’ actions were a violation of a particularly intimate and trusting therapeutic relationship and needed to be denounced. “He imposed his own agenda on her,” the judge noted, adding Matthews should have got clear consent before touching the woman in the manner he did.
Matthews has since given up his counselling practice and moved from North Vancouver. Under the conditional sentence order, he must obey a curfew between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and perform 30 hours of community work service. Challenger also placed him on probation for three years and on the sex offender registry for 10 years. Matthews is also banned from offering counselling services.
