A leading figure in the gay “conversion therapy” movement who claims to have helped homosexuals to remain heterosexually married is now dating men.

David Matheson, a former Mormon, confirmed this week that he had faced up to “substantial changes” in his life in the past year. “I realised I couldn’t stay in my marriage any longer. And I realised that it was time for me to affirm myself as gay,” he said in a Facebook post.

Now divorced from his wife of 34 years, he was outed by the LGBT charity Truth Wins Out after it obtained a private Facebook post from Rich Wyler, his former business partner. He wrote that Mr Matheson “says that living a single, celibate life ‘just isn’t feasible’ for him