A self-styled Buddhist guru who used his 'mystical' charms to rape and sexually assault women was jailed for ten years yesterday for a decade-long reign of terror.
Police fear Michael Lyons, 51, may have attacked hundreds more middle-class victims in Britain and America.
Lyons ran an international spiritual cult and his followers, some of whom believed he could cure cancer, funded his lavish lifestyle as well as introducing him to new potential followers.
In his flowing maroon robes, he adopted the name 'Mohan Singh'. But in reality, he was a 'sexual predator' who used female devotees to recruit his victims.
Lyons' group of slavish female followers treated him 'like a god'. He was driven around in luxury cars including Bentleys, Mercedes and vintage Rolls-Royces, and toured the world with trips to Miami, Washington DC, London, Paris, and India.
But yesterday he was jailed at Wood Green Crown Court, North London, for ten years for raping one woman and sexually attacking another.
He was cleared of two more rapes and one more sexual assault. The jury could not reach a decision on another rape and sexual assault.
Sentencing him, Judge Nicholas Browne, QC, criticised his followers for their 'blind loyalty'.
He said: 'They well knew what was likely to happen to both victims before their sexual abuse.
'Women's groups everywhere will be shocked and appalled in the complicity in these two crimes of women close to you. It was complete betrayal by women to women.'
Lyons was jailed for seven years for rape and three years for sexual assault to run consecutively.
The case contained allegations made between 1998 and last year. But police believe more victims in both Britain and America are yet to come forward.
Lyons was convicted of raping a receptionist in her thirties in June 2002. He wafted fumes from a burning frying pan around her and mumbled spiritual mantras before massaging her. He then ushered her into his bedroom and raped her despite her pleas for him to stop.
He also assaulted a teacher from Sheffield in January 2005 during what she thought was a chiropractic treatment after her lodger, one of Mohan's followers, introduced her to him. Lyons began massaging her legs before assaulting her.
The court heard sworn testimony from five women who said they were raped by Lyons in the United States.
This was his second trial for sexual assault after the first collapsed last year. Between the two court cases, five women contacted police claiming they too had been assaulted by Lyons in the past.
Investigating officer Detective Sergeant Nick Giles, from the Metropolitan Police, said: 'The core of this case is the horrific offending against women. It is about psychological and emotional control, brainwashing and isolation from families.'
Intelligent and from a comfortable middle-class background, Skye Enyeart does not strike you as an obvious victim.
But she was also, by her own admission, 'naive and trusting', exactly the qualities which Michael Lyons was a master at manipulating.
Now a 29-year-old language teacher, she fears she was raped by the 'spiritual leader' while drugged and helpless in the summer of 2000.
Certainly Skye's story neatly illustrates Lyons' modus operandi, perfected over many years, across many countries.
She first encountered 'Dr Mohan Singh', as Lyons liked to style himself, as she and a friend waited for a bus to the supermarket after a day of studying in Washington DC.
'This car rocked up, a Lincoln town vehicle, and Mohan and another female friend offered to give us a ride,' she says.
'There were about four other women in the car, and as Mohan was dressed in Tibetan robes, like a Buddhist, we felt safe. He gave us a lift as promised and we arranged to meet for tea later.'
The tea, at a cafe, was an innocent affair. 'They seemed kind-hearted and we talked about Tibetans, Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama at length,' says Skye, who was then working as an intern.
'Mohan even purported to be the Dalai Lama's osteopath. He said he could diagnose any ailments just by feeling my back and after pushing some of my lower vertebrae told me I suffered from lower back problems. I had seen multiple physicians that year so I was impressed.'
At one point, Skye says, Lyons placed a coin on her forehead and told her she was meditating with her third eye. 'When he removed it, I felt different, all tingly. An odd but nice feeling.'
Intrigued by their new acquaintance, Skye arranged to meet Lyons the following day, with her friend, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
But this time round the trip was far from innocent. 'We got in the car and it became clear we weren't going to a restaurant this time,' Skye says. 'We headed out of town. I felt deeply uneasy and kept asking where we were going. Mohan just kept telling me to relax.'
She suspects she was drugged, and describes feeling ' physically incapacitated' by the time she left the car. 'My body felt strangely separate and immobile compared to my mind. My limbs were too lethargic to move,' she recalls.
Separated from her friend, she watched, dazed, as Mohan pulled a dark blue paisley bedspread out of the trunk, and pushed her on to it.
'He tried to kiss me. I was crying and pleading, "No, please, no". I resisted as much as my body allowed but he raped me. He was saying that I was proud, and that I had to be crucified to find enlightenment. He told me he was showing me real love.'
The ordeal lasted for hours after which Skye was dropped off back in Washington. 'I felt paralysed with shock. I went to for treatment and then made a statement to police,' she says. 'I could barely take in what had happened.'
Equally distressingly, Skye's friend had turned against her. 'I met up with her later but she would not discuss what had happened. Mohan had begun his brainwashing, leaving messages on her phone about how I was an evil vampire. It was incredibly upsetting.'
Within weeks, her friend had left Washington to join Lyons in Britain. 'She left a note, saying that I needed help because my exaggeration was ridiculous,' Skye says.
But then Michael Lyons had amassed a devoted group of followers, who hung on to his every word, ludicrous though they were.
'Dr' Mohan Singh was, he told his followers, chiropractor to the Queen as well as private osteopath to the Dalai Lama.
He was, moreover, a trained 'naturopathic' healer who counted a number of celebrities, including Hollywood actor Steven Seagal, among the fans of his 'specialist' purification techniques.
His physical appearance, it must be said, did not suggest any particular spiritual gifts - in his late forties, Singh was short and dumpy, with a predilection for velvet suits and jangly beads.
But the purring Bentley which was his preferred mode of transport suggested he was a man of means, while the glamorous women with whom he surrounded himself seemed further testament to his apparently extraordinary powers.
As we now know, some of the 'enlightenment' Singh promised to the women gathered at his luxury flat in North London was doled out in the most distressing way imaginable.
Behind the slick, smiling exterior, police believe, is a dangerous sexual predator whose real number of victims may run to more than 100 worldwide - many fearful of speaking out in the wake of his exhortations that to do so signalled emotional weakness.
In fact, this was just one of many bogus doctrines espoused by Singh. Such was his web of deceit that it is hard to know what part of him is genuine.
Certainly not his name. While little detail is known about his background, we do know that Mohan Singh came into the world 51 years ago with the rather more mundane moniker Michael Lyons.
Lyons was born in Jamaica but was raised in the rundown Moss Side area of Manchester, to where his parents moved in the 1960s.
By the mid-Eighties he had surfaced in India where, police believe, he started his 'spiritual' movement, the Friends of Mohan.
The followers were of all nationalities but had this in common - they were all female, and good-looking.
And once recruited they were, as Detective Sergeant Nick Giles from the Metropolitan Police puts it, subjected to 'a sophisticated form of grooming'.
Certainly, as Skye Enyeart can testify, wherever he was in the world Lyons proved himself an impressive wooer of young, often vulnerable women.
His hunting grounds were yoga studios, health food shops and gyms - anywhere frequented by women who took care of their bodies and who, often, had an interest in alternative therapies. Sometimes he would make contact himself, on other occasions one of his legion of followers would do it on his behalf.
As Mr Giles relates: 'His victims tend to be highly intelligent with an interest in spirituality, but at a point in their life where they are searching for answers.
'They are introduced and recommended to Lyons by the Friends of Mohan. They see these successful happy women and the promise of a solution to their problems and are lured in.'
Lyons' activities had come to the attention of police well over a decade ago. By 1999, Florida detectives had carried out an investigation following allegations of sexual offences from several women. It was inconclusive however, and Lyons was able to continue with his work, arriving back in the UK in 2001.
Operating between Manchester and London, he rented a string of properties from which he ran his 'practice', including a number of upmarket addresses, most in the Camden area of North London and a lavish penthouse apartment above Manchester's Lowry building - all of it, apparently, funded by his devoted followers, many of whom paid up to £400 a month into a bank account in his name.
As Mr Giles reveals, there was certainly no problem raising his bail. 'When he was first charged the movement managed to put up his £300,000 bail incredibly quickly,' he recalls.
Little wonder Lyons believed himself 'untouchable' - the word he used to one neighbour with whom he had a confrontation in London's exclusive Belsize Park in 2004.
The neighbour, who asked not to be named, paints a picture of an arrogant man who unsettled the whole neighbourhood with his unorthodox living arrangements.
'There were young women coming and going the whole time,' the neighbour says. 'Music would blare out at 2am - hip hop and 1970s jazz - and there would be a funny smell coming from the flat. They were burning oils and stuff like that. It would stink out the whole road.'
When the neighbour complained to Lyons, however, he was to receive a chilling warning.
'He said, "Let me introduce myself. I am a martial arts expert. Don't **** with me - I can make one phone call and have you killed",' the neighbour recalls. 'He said he was untouchable, thought everyone was too scared of him to complain.'
For a time it seemed he was right: Over the years countless women visited Lyons to receive his 'purifying' treatments, which appeared to vary according to his mood.
Sometimes they would involve intimate massage, on other occasions a shower or back rub, all against a backdrop of incense sticks and 'spiritual' music.
Lyons would tell the women they were 'too proud' and that he would show them 'real love'.
Who knows how long he might have gone unchecked - especially as, the Daily Mail has learned, Lyons escaped charges as early as 2002 when a young PA first made a complaint of rape against him to British police.
Finally, in 2005, two other victims came forward with similar allegations, only for police to find that 'Dr Mo' had fled the country.
An international manhunt followed, with Lyons arrested in the autumn of 2007 as he arrived at Heathrow on a flight from Miami. When news of his arrest was made public, more victims came forward to the police.
Yet, astonishingly, even the five charges of rape and three of sexual assault eventually brought against him was not enough to persuade some of his followers to turn their back on him during his trial. Many gave evidence in his defence, calling him a 'genuinely spiritual man'.
It was, thankfully, not enough to convince the jury. Today, he is not a 'guru' but a common sex offender who faces many years in prison.
It has come as immense relief to Skye, who flew to London from the U.S. of her own volition to testify as a prosecution witness after learning Lyons had been arrested.
'When I learned Lyons had been arrested in 2007 I immediately called up my medical records and got in touch with the FBI to formally press charges,' she recalls. 'The FBI passed on my report to police in Britain and I was asked by them to testify against him.'
The experience, she says, proved cathartic. 'After eight years of living with my history, learning I was not alone in being violated by Mohan provided an odd sort of comfort - although for that same reason it made it all the more disturbing,' she says.
'It was an incredibly liberating experience. Looking at him in court I felt disgusted by him. I can't believe that a master manipulator like him walked the streets for so long and I'm just glad that he will no longer be able to take advantage of other vulnerable people.'
Today, as Lyons contemplates a future behind bars, many others will share her sentiments.
Additional reporting - Jacqui Goddard in Miami.
