THE so-called Darlington sex cult created headlines around the world when it was discovered in May 2006.

Sinister-looking Lee Thompson was investigated by police after complaints that he led a female slave around the market town centre on a lead.

His strange behaviour led them to be banned from their favourite butchers stall, and made them infamous locally.

What was not known at the time was that the self-styled sex cult master had a conviction for serious sexual assault, and one for making threats to kill, for which he was sent for treatment to Rampton Secure Hospital.

It was there, he claims, that he met and had a relationship with killer nurse Beverley Allitt.

Nor was it known that he used threats to force a lover to have sex with other men around the country.

When the cult was uncovered in May 2006, Thompson made out that no-one in his master-slave relationships was harmed.

He told reporters: "I have been called sick but I dont think what I do is bad.

"There's no reason for people to be afraid of me. I'd die before I see anyone get hurt.

"Saying that, the girls will do everything they are told when it comes to sex, but it is all voluntary and all safe.

"Lots of girls want to come and try to find out about it.

"They think it's exciting, but it's hard work for everyone. Girls leave when they've had enough."

The lifestyle was based on the Kaotian sect, an offshoot of the Goreans, who based their beliefs on the 1960s Gor sci-fi novels by John Norman.

The books profess that the natural order is for women to be dominated by men.

The cult came to light in Forster Street, Darlington, when an American friend of a Canadian living with him alerted police.

The friend said the woman - a trans-sexual - was being stopped from leaving and that her passport and plane ticket home had been destroyed.

But police found no crime had been committed, and no further action was taken after she was given support to leave the property.

Since then, Thompson's story went around the world and he was courted by documentary makers.

He appeared on the Trisha TV show with a young trainee sex master called Zachary Nicodemous, whose father was pleading for him to leave the cult.

The show ended unhappily for the 18-year-old's parents, after the Suffolk teenager refused to quit, but he has since left the Kaotian lifestyle.

Thompson moved to the West Midlands after he became too notorious in Darlington.

He has a red teardrop below his right eye which he had around the time of his grandmothers funeral, a Celtic-style thick black tattoo on the left side of his face and a red triangular design in the middle of his forehead.

A friend said the forehead tattoo meant to radiate energy, and all his tattoos were meant to be peaceful.

He even gave instructions on Youtube on how to be a sex master.

Thompson, balding and bearded, has a piercing gaze which can scare people, the officer investigating the claims said.

Detective Constable Scott Denham said: "He is a self-styled sex cult leader.

"He is a very intimidating character with a very forceful personality.

"He has children all over the world."

Thompson glared at his victim, who sat in court a few seats away from his blonde present girlfriend, to whom he winked and whispered "I love you".