When Lilith Wildwood’s only child left home at 18, the moment was bittersweet.

Yes, as a single parent, she would miss the close bond with Nathan – but it would certainly take some pressure off the finances.

Having only been able to juggle part-time work with her parenting commitments, by the time Nathan left for university in 2011, Lilith was £15,000 in debt and at the mercy of rental landlords.

But now, just 15 years on, Lilith, 56, is debt-free, a homeowner, and earning a comfortable salary of around £44,000 a year.

It’s quite the transformation – and, she claims, it’s all down to ‘magick’.

Suspend your disbelief for a minute, because while you might not believe in the ‘spells’ that Lilith says helped bring about her financial stability, what does irrefutably pay her bills is giving lessons in mysticism.

A qualified psychotherapist, today she runs a practice from her home in Nottinghamshire, where she instructs women in how to harness their mystical powers to help them run successful businesses.

Her online ‘web coven’ – an internet community where she teaches ‘feminist spirituality’ and shares lessons of witchy empowerment over a weekly Zoom meeting – is flourishing, too.

It’s all a far cry from her years as a single mum struggling to make ends meet.

Money was always tight when Lilith was growing up in a single-parent family with mum Roz in West Yorkshire.

She recalls occasions when she and her sister had to share a boiled egg for their dinner. ‘We were on the breadline,’ she says, ‘but we just got on with it.’

Lilith Woodward, 56, is debt-free, a homeowner in Nottinghamshire and earning a comfortable salary of around £44,000 a year

It was a near-death experience as a toddler, after she accidentally swallowed a nappy pin, that first sparked her interest in all things mystical.

‘Everything in my life always felt magical,’ Lilith says. As a child, she found she could predict who was on the phone before they called, shared a deep connection with animals and was even ‘visited’ by her dead grandmother. From her early teens, she studied tarot and the power of symbolism.

At university she met her partner, moving to London together after graduating. Lilith started an MA in psychotherapy, but fell pregnant at the end of her first year, aged just 24. ‘We shared the care, but I was breastfeeding. What was meant to be a two-year master’s turned into five years.’

They split when she was 27, and Lilith found herself a single parent. With the responsibility of looking after her toddler she was unable to work full time, turning to benefits to support them. Debts started to rise, and for a time they were homeless, having to stay in a friend’s living room.

They moved to Brighton in 1999 when Nathan was four, where Lilith began teaching groups in the art of mysticism from her home three times a week to top up her finances.

However, as she was homeschooling Nathan, there was only so much time she could spend working. As each year passed she would fall another £1,000 into debt – until, when Nathan was 18, she found herself £15,000 in the red.

When Nathan left home to study midwifery, Lilith realised it was an opportunity for change.

‘I was really proud of him, but it meant I was able to concentrate more on my work.’

And Lilith had another reason to be optimistic about the future: her belief in the power of ‘money spells’.

‘It’s not about making money instantly or conjuring £50 notes from the sky,’ she explains. ‘It’s about setting the unconscious belief that money flows to me freely and carrying out rituals, like chanting or meditation, to set that belief.’

‘I’ve often done money spells. It is hard work and it takes time, but it can help make a difference in your life.’

And, she claims, it did. With more time on her hands – and her spells set – she ramped up her business activities, and within three years had paid off her debts, and even saved up £3,000 to go travelling.

‘So many witches and magical women are struggling. They are stuck in jobs which they hate but don’t understand how to turn their skills into businesses,’ says Lilith

She spent two years on the road, before settling back in the UK in 2016, having built up the same amount in savings she’d left with, having taught online courses in magical skills throughout her travels.

But £3,000 doesn’t get you a long way, and soon she found herself living in a van and sofa-surfing before renting a flat, which her landlord then sold, forcing her to move again.

So again, she cast a money spell. Within two years, she’d saved £20,000, enough for the deposit on her bungalow, moving in in 2023 at the age of 23

‘It feels brilliant to be able to pay for a home and not be reliant on a landlord. I’ve never owned a home before and my mum never did either.

‘I have the money now to make my home a safe place, which I have never had before. I’ve got to the perfect place for me, where I won’t have to move and I can decorate and plant things, it’s just taken me 56 years.’

Now, she is determined to help other women who harbour dreams of a more magical way of life fulfil their potential too.

‘So many witches and magical women are struggling. They are stuck in jobs which they hate but don’t understand how to turn their skills into businesses.

‘Magick at its essence is a type of self-hypnosis, so as a practitioner, it feels great to be able to help them take these steps so they feel good about themselves.

‘Even though it makes it harder for me to be taken seriously, I make a point of reclaiming the word “witch”. I have the skills and I’m going to use them to help people,’ she says.

To cast a simple money spell to increase your abundance, you must first set a mental intention to do so. The second step would be to find all sorts of symbols, photos and objects which make you feel like you have financial abundance and thirdly, having set the spell, be guided by your intuition.

Regardless of your views on the power of money spells, it’s quite a journey from homeless to homeowner.

Whether it’s due to ‘magick’, grit, or sheer self-belief, perhaps there are lessons to be learned.

A failed asylum seeker accused of taking part in the gang rape of an unconscious drunk woman told a jury ‘rape is sex’ as he was quizzed on his understanding of consent.

Egyptian Karin Al-Danasurt said he filmed his two friends raping the woman, who cannot be named, on Brighton beach after his asylum application was rejected.

He told Lewes Crown Court in Hove the 33-year-old victim was so drunk she was being held up by his co-accused as they took her behind a wooden beach hut in the early hours of October 4 last year.

Hanna Llewellyn-Waters, prosecuting for the Crown, told a jury the three men treated the woman like meat and used her for their own entertainment.

Al-Danasurt, who was 25 at the time, said he was filming to gather evidence for his own protection. He denies a charge of rape and of sharing intimate videos.

His co-defendants Ibrahim Alshafe, another Egyptian, and Iranian Kurd Abdulla Amih Ahmadi both deny rape.

Ms Llewellyn-Waters for the Crown asked him: ‘As far as you were concerned, you were witnessing a rape?’

‘I see sex in front of me,’ he told the court.

Karin Al-Danasurt, an Egyptian asylum seeker, said he saw ‘sex in front of me’ as he filmed the alleged rape of a woman on Brighton beach

His co-accused Ibrahim Alshafe has denied raping the woman in the early hours of October 4 last year

‘No, there’s lots of different types of sex, you were witnessing a rape,’ Ms Llewellyn-Waters said.

Al-Danasurt replied: ‘That’s what I saw. Rape to me is sex.’

He was further challenged on whether he saw ‘any distinction’ between someone who is or is not able to agree to sex, and whether it ‘mattered’. 

Speaking through an interpreter, he said he did not understand the question.

Pressed, the Egyptian said: ‘I said what I saw. She was closing her eyes, opening her eyes. She wasn’t speaking.

‘The situation wasn’t pleasant, it was bad. She wasn’t able to say anything. They were raping her, but I did not hear anything. I didn’t hear what they told her.’

Al-Danasurt told police he started filming his friends, who all lived in the same asylum hotel, to gather evidence.

Asked why he was filming, he said: ‘It was to stop them and to protect myself. I did whatever I could do to stop them and to speak to them.’

But Ms Llwelly-Waters told him: ‘You did precisely nothing. You went off and had a barbecue with them the next day.’

Al-Danasurt denies rape and sharing intimate videos.

The court heard he went to the Horizon nightclub just before 3.30am where he met the other two men and stayed till closing time at 5am.  

The men are said to have filmed themselves getting ready for a night out before catching a bus into Brighton where they met the woman

After getting a bus back to their hotel after the alleged rape, the migrants are said to have filmed themselves having a barbecue in the hotel grounds

The three defendants are said to have partied at their asylum hotel after the attack – with one posing with a sunglasses filter on his face

He told the jury through an interpreter he had tried to pull them off the woman and only filmed the incident to gather evidence for police. He also denied spitting on the woman.

The jury was told more than 15 minutes passed after the end of the third clip shot by Al-Danasurt and one of the men being seen on CCTV leaving the beach.

Tests indicated DNA from three other people was present, with semen belonging to  Alshafe and Ahmadi being identified. Tests on a third sample were inconclusive.

Al-Danasurt told the jury his asylum claim had been rejected and he was helping Alshafe after his claim had also been rejected. The three men had a barbecue at their asylum hotel hours later.

The men filmed themselves getting ready for a night out before catching a bus into Brighton; video of them in a room at the asylum hotel where they were all living were shown to the jury.

Three clips filmed by Al-Danasurt of his roommate and another small boat migrant having sex with the woman have also been shown to the jury.

The jury heard Alshafe groped another woman at the Horizon club and told her he was looking for a British bride and to get citizenship.

He said he did not want to go back to his country as he touched the young woman in a Brighton nightclub.

The jury have been told Ahmadi left the Home Office-run hotel in Sussex the day after the barbecue in an ‘unapproved move’ described as ‘absconding’. He was arrested on October 12 in Crewe.

The woman has described her attackers as evil men who had ruined her life.

The court heard Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, arrived on a small boat on June 19, 2025 with Abdulla Amih Ahmadi. Both were housed at the hotel from June 21, 2025.

Al-Danasurt entered the country on October 11, 2024, it was said. 

Ahmadi, from Crewe in Cheshire, and Alshafe, who lives in Horsham, have each denied two counts of raping the woman.

Al-Danasurt, also from Horsham, is jointly charged on all four counts of rape as a secondary party encouraging the rape, and has been charged with sharing intimate images without consent. They have denied all charges.

The trial at Lewes Crown Court in Hove continues.

By GETHIN HICKS, REPORTER

Published: 21:10 EDT, 12 March 2026 | Updated: 23:00 EDT, 12 March 2026

A 77-year-old therapist who used his profession to sexually abuse a patient has been jailed. 

Gerald Peck of York Villas, Brighton, sexually assaulted a woman in her 40s multiple times after telling her his treatment could alleviate her depression and physical pain.

The woman sought out Peck’s treatment after seeing advertisements describing him as a ‘private body and energy therapist’.

But, when she booked an appointment, Peck told his victim that skin-to-skin contact was necessary before claiming that penetration and intimate touching would be the ‘only way’ to ease her trauma.  

He was this week sentenced at Lewes Crown Court to 11 years behind bars after being found guilty on five counts of sexual assault. 

It was found that he used his profession as a therapist to justify inappropriate and abusive behaviour.

Gerald Peck of York Villas, Brighton , sexually assaulted a woman in her 40s multiple times after telling her his treatment could alleviate her depression and physical pain

Detective Constable Jazz Gannon said: ‘The victim’s courage and determination were central to securing the sentence for serious sexual offences committed by a therapist against his client.

‘Her strength has brought accountability and highlighted the critical importance of maintaining clear, ethical boundaries between therapists and those they are entrusted to support.

‘We hope her bravery encourages greater awareness, accountability, and stronger safeguarding within therapeutic environments. 

‘Her resilience throughout this process has been essential in revealing the truth, and her willingness to speak out has helped raise awareness across services, ensuring similar reports are recognised and addressed more effectively in the future.’

By CIARAN FOREMAN, SPORTS REPORTER and JAMES SHARPE and CHRIS WHEELER, NORTHERN SPORTS WRITER and NATHAN SALT – FOOTBALL REPORTER and MATT BARLOW, FOOTBALL WRITER

Updated: 09:30 EST, 1 March 2026