TV comic 'groomed' tragic overdose teenager: 18-year-old's mystery death after star 'showered him with gifts then made sexual advances'
Ben Cowburn was studying a fashion course in London, an inquest heard
He met comedian 'Mr X', who made advances and bought gifts
True identity of TV star has been protected after agreement with coroner
Ben was due to work as Mr X's stylist, but this was cancelled
But he later admitted the relationship made him feel 'dirty and used'
He was found dead in his bedroom in 2010 with a plastic bag nearby
His sister told the inquest: 'We had concerns about him being groomed'
A TV comedian ‘groomed’ a teenage boy for sex just months before the troubled youth killed himself, an inquest has heard.
The gay comic, referred to only as ‘Mr X’ at the hearing, is said to have showered tragic Ben Cowburn with gifts then took him to drink and drug-fuelled parties.
Within weeks the fashion student felt ‘dirty and used’ as he had become immersed in ‘a hedonistic lifestyle which he found distasteful’.
At one party he was persuaded to strip in front of a group of men who began to fondle him until one guest intervened and told them to stop.
After another late night of drink and drugs, the TV star crept into bed with Ben for sex.
In a statement to the inquest, his twin sister Sophia said: ‘We had concerns about him being groomed by Mr X.’
Ben was due to work as the comedian’s stylist but they fell out and the teenager made several apparent suicide attempts and was admitted to a mental health hospital. There he took a serious drug overdose, and four days later he was found dead, a plastic bag at his side.
In the weeks before he took his life, the 18-year-old suggested to family, friends and doctors that the famous comedian had taken advantage of him. He told one nurse: ‘I felt dirty, used, belittled and humiliated.’
After he was found dead in his hospital room, local police officers alerted Scotland Yard to ‘suggestions that Benjamin may have been the victim of a serious sexual assault’.
But police never questioned the celebrity and he has not given evidence at Ben’s inquest, where the coroner agreed his identity should be protected.
The claims emerged after the ongoing inquest heard from an independent expert that Ben did not receive the required standard of care at the hospital, and that staff had been kept in the dark about the seriousness of his condition.
However, the jury has also heard evidence from several witnesses that Ben’s troubles worsened after he met the older man, soon after moving to London from Cornwall.
He had been a star pupil at the Fashion Retail Academy founded by billionaire tycoon Sir Philip Green, the inquest in Truro heard last week.
In his first year he was chosen to attend a lunch with Sir Philip, and in April 2010 he put a question to David Cameron when he visited the London college during the General Election campaign.
Ben’s parents Sharon and Steve Cowburn, who run a chain of nursery schools in Cornwall, believed he had settled in well after starting the course in September 2009.
‘It was around this time I became aware that Ben had met a celebrity in a pub when he was out with friends,’ his mother told the inquest jury.
