Victims, survivors and supporters will watch justice finally catch up with rapist actor Alexander Westwood today

The public gallery at Wolverhampton Crown Court is expected to be full of victims flanked by friends and family to see Judge Neil Chawla KC sentence Westwood. 

The Albrighton actor, of Holyhead Road, forced his victims and relatives to give evidence against him during his four-week, 26-charge trial last autumn.

Several of the women will be returning to the court for the first time since leaving in floods of tears after being subjected to cross-examination by Westwood's barrister Janes Bloomer KC. 

After four disturbing weeks of evidence chronicling Westwood's manipulative, entitled, highly sexualised behaviour towards children and drama pupils in his care, a jury found the 24-year-old guilty of 26 charges including rape and multiple sexual assaults of a child in Dudley. He also forced a boy to watch pornography which led to more sexual charges levelled against him.