His body was short, round and ready to burst, as if he’d been inflated with a bicycle pump and a halt had been called just in time. He spoke dramatically, emphasising every word, even if the subject matter was a shopping list. He also turned out to have a domineering personality. He was probably in his sixties, while I was nineteen. I can’t call him a paedophile since I was old enough, at least under the law, to have made a run for it. I did learn later that exactly what happened to me had happened to a whole swag of young men, all from Australia. From the time he picked me up at the airport it took me five months to escape.

Once he had you in the flat it was hard to break free. I still find it difficult to explain why. Partly it was his ability to break down the self-esteem of whichever young man had fallen into his trap: he’d put you off applying for a job, from taking a trip away, even from travelling into town on your own. He would smile indulgently but contemptuously, implying that you would wither without his assistance. And, after a while, the prophecy became self-fulfilling. Like most young Australians, I’d intended to find a job within a few weeks of arriving: barman or theatre usher were the usual options. I had limited funds. By talking me out of applying for anything – ‘That’s a bad part of town’, ‘I think you can do better’ – Lionel’s work was half done. Soon, it became difficult to avoid becoming his dependent.

He would also tempt me with stories of his influence. He could get me a job as a coffee boy at ITV’s Elstree Studios, the first step on my glorious journey towards being a junior floor manager on a TV soap opera. He had contacts there. ‘It will take just three more weeks,’ he’d say, repeating the promise after each three-week deadline had elapsed. And then he’d say, ‘I’ll be so lonely if you go,’ looking at me with pleading bug-eyes. So perhaps he was preying on my good side, my bad side, my ambitious side, my bankrupt side, my fearful side, and doing so all at once. At this distance, I still feel embarrassed I didn’t have the strength or fortitude or dignity to say: ‘This is awful, I’m leaving, I refuse to be your victim.’ I don’t really understand why I didn’t. It was my lowest moment.

Lionel was after companionship more than sex, although every few weeks he’d more or less force me into bed, as I’m sure he’d done with at least some of the young ‘house guests’ before me. Afterwards he would stand in his bathroom with the door open and scrub himself with pHisohex to remove any trace of what had occurred, strangely keen for me to see how he was sanitising himself, despite the fact the sex had been at his insistence. I had a bedroom at the other end of the apartment in which I would cry myself to sleep most nights, burying my head in the pillow to muffle the sound. Amid my tears I’d plot ways to leave. I’d imagine scenarios in which I’d explain that I was going to Scotland, or leaving for France, or heading off to see my aunt, but I’d always get stuck at the point of his reply, knowing that he’d somehow talk me down, humiliate me into staying.

I then began plotting how I’d leave in the middle of the night, sneaking out without a confrontation, interrupting my own train of thought with a question: ‘Since you’ve been here so long, maybe you should wait just another couple of weeks for that job he’s promised. What’s another week?’

I would also – at this point in my escape fantasy – remember that the outside door was triple-deadlocked at night.

Lionel had a heart condition which required daily treatment in the rooms of a Harley Street specialist and so each day would follow the same course. We’d get up, eat breakfast and then be picked up at 9am by a mini-cab driver who’d take us to Lionel’s medical appointment. I’d sit in the waiting room for an hour and a half while Lionel, wearing a heart monitor, rode an exercise bike. We’d then take a mini-cab home, pausing at a bakery, where Lionel would buy huge quantities of cake which he would eat in the back seat of the cab.

I did mention, didn’t I, that he was obese?

We’d spend the rest of the time sitting in his flat – me trying not to breathe too heavily, or move too briskly, due to his concern for the antique glass ornaments with which the flat was bedecked.