Ex-Military Police Misbehavior in London

Rasika Kobbekaduwa arrived in the UK from Sri Lanka with his wife in 2011 as an asylum seeker and was a former military police officer in his home country. He was convicted on a string of previous convictions for sex offences – including several indecent exposures on buses. However, he managed to obtain   a job as a masseur at the Healing Hands Prana Spa in Camden, north London. The 33-year-old had been jailed for 15 months at Harrow crown court in January 2014 after pleading guilty to exposing himself on London buses five times between November 2012 and July 2013.He was also put on the Sex Offenders Register and banned from travelling on buses.

The court heard how Kobbekaduwa, of Harrow, North West London, pulled down the knickers of 21-year-old female client at the spa where he was working last year and asked her to lie on the massage table.

When she lay down, Kobbekaduwa then ‘kissed or sniffed her’, the court heard – causing the woman to confront him and call 999.

Maureen Flaherty, prosecuting, told the court: “She (the victim) was directed downstairs and was content that the spa appeared to be a professional operation.

“But the masseur (Kobbekaduwa) removed her underwear and either kissed or sniffed her.”

The court heard how Daniel Chadwick, defending, said that Kobbekaduwa’s actions were a direct result of his former job as a military policeman, where he was taught to ‘humiliate’ opponents of the Government regime.

He told the court: “While in Sri Lanka, he was in the employment of the military police in which he was required to deal with opponents of the Sri Lankan government.”

He told the court that this ‘involved the organized sexual assaults and humiliation of opponents of the regime’, adding: “It is that experience that has led to all of the offending.”

Judge Michael Gledhill QC told Kobbekaduwa that he was a ‘danger to women’ after he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault.

He said: “This man is a danger to women for the obvious reason that he has committed so many offences on or towards women that I feel he will do it again. He reserves the order for another day.