The trial heard how a young Irish graduate became infatuated with the man who would eventually stab her to death. Deaglán de Bréadún reports.
So many words have been used to describe this strange and horrifying case of Christopher Newman (63), who has been found guilty of the murder of a young Co Wicklow woman, Georgina Eager (28).
The trial at the Inner London Crown Court was highly unusual in many respects, not least for its location.
Originally from India, the defendant had British nationality. Longstanding UK legislation allows for citizens to be tried in Britain for crimes allegedly committed in another jurisdiction.
Observers said it was the first time this had happened with an Irish murder case.
The circumstances were also unique. A practitioner of alternative therapies, Newman had established a clinic at 143 St Peter's Road in Walkinstown, Dublin.
His qualifications were disputed between defence and prosecution, but he had little or nothing in the way of conventional medical or therapeutic training, at least by Irish standards.
Newman was born Panna Lal Palta in India in 1942 and came to Britain, where he settled in London. He changed his name to Saph Dean in 1987 and later, in 2000, by deed poll to Christopher Newman.
He had no prison record. Newman married a Tunisian woman in London in 1985, and they had two sons, now 15 and 19. They ran a beauty school together next door to their home but got divorced around 1990.
After his marriage broke up he moved to Dublin and set up the Walkinstown clinic, although he appears to have retained an address at Catford, London.
At the clinic he was known as "Professor Saph Dean", "David Dean" or "The Professor", although his qualifications for a professorial position were never properly clarified in the course of the trial.
He described himself as an expert in "factology", a discipline he created himself which allegedly sought to ascertain the true causes of illness by the application of facts.
In July 2002 he hired as an assistant Georgina Eager, then aged 27, from Newtownmountkennedy, Co Wicklow. The eldest in a family of four girls, she had a degree in European Studies from the University of Limerick and spoke fluent French.
She had some limited experience in alternative therapy and had worked in the make-up section of the Brown Thomas store in Dublin.
Georgina was clearly in awe of the smooth-talking "Professor" and an intimate relationship developed between them.
The defendant had a penchant for making secret videos and a tape played during the trial shows a naked Newman lecturing his new employee, who obviously regarded him as a kind of guru.
The young Wicklow woman took to her new job with considerable enthusiasm. Within a short time she was performing colonic irrigations.
Soon Georgina was working 12 hours a day, six days a week and studying for some vague form of qualification issued by Newman himself.
Only a few people knew she was in an intimate relationship with her boss. She confided to her mother that she was involved with a man in his 60s, and Sylvia Eager commented: "As long as he's nice to you."
The five-week trial was attended by all the members of Georgina's immediate family as well as her uncle, Kevin Eager.
There were some 40 witnesses and most of their expenses were covered by the British exchequer.