Woman tells of her ‘shock’ when she was assaulted by vicar
A worshipper allegedly groped by the leader of a cult like Christianity worship service during a massage told a court: ‘He was supposed to be a priest’
Chris Brain, 68, is on trial at Inner London Crown Court accused of 37 offences against 13 women who were involved in his Sheffield based evangelical movement called Nine O’Clock Service.
He led NOS from 1986 to 1995 before it collapsed due to allegations of widespread sexual and psychological abuse.
The 68-year-old employed a team of ‘home-based’ young women wearing tight-fitting clothes to help him get to sleep and perform sexual favours, it is claimed.
Today (fri), jurors were played pre-recorded footage of one of Chris’s 13 alleged victims being cross-examined.
It is alleged that Brain groped the woman – who joined the Nine O’Clock Service as a teenager in the 1980s – during a massage.
He is also accused of attempting to ‘snog’ her without consent.
Mr Iain Simkin KC, representing Brain, told the woman that his client ‘does not accept that these events occurred.’
He put to her: ‘You don’t give much detail about the kiss, would you agree with that?’
She responded: ‘It was brief and I didn’t like the experience – I found it sickening.’
‘Do you recall his lips touching yours’, Mr Simkin asked later.
‘Yes, and I recall very clearly him putting his tongue in my mouth’, the witness said.
She explained later: ‘I found the experience quite horrifying – it was awful and recalling it now still makes me feel sick and revolted.’
Moving onto the second allegation, Mr Simkin asked: ‘With regards to massages, it was true – wasn’t it – that from time to time a number of people on different occasions would massage Chris before he went to bed
‘And you, in your evidence, related that you had done this a couple of times before this incident, correct?’
‘Yes’, she said.
‘And on this occasion he turned around and grabbed, or touched, both of your breasts. Correct?’
‘Yes’, she repeated.
Mr Simkin put to the witness that this experience ‘must have been horrifying for you’.
‘I found it traumatic’, jurors heard her answer, ‘I was shocked, Chris was supposed to be a priest and yes I found the whole experience shocking, yeah.’
The barrister then asked: ‘Having been shocked, traumatised and violated – why did you continue to stay in the employment of the Nine O’Clock Service or the home-based service, or anything to do with Mr Brain?’
‘I only wanted a professional relationship and made that very, very clear’, the witness explained.
Mr Simkin continued: ‘He’s saying that are lying.’
‘He’s welcome to his opinion, I don’t lie’, she answered.
‘You are making up wicked allegations against him which are untruthful, that’s right isn’t it?’, put Mr Timkin.
‘Absolutely not’, the woman replied.
A statement was then read to jurors written by the witness’ now-deceased husband, also a former member of the Nine O’Clock Service.
He wrote that when NOS began he found Brain to be ‘manipulative and belittle people’.
Jurors heard him describe his wife as Brain’s ‘personal secretary’ and referred to them not being ‘allowed to know what each other were doing.’
At a Greenbelt festival near Milton Keynes his wife was ‘kept separate from me and staying in a tent where I believe she had a miscarriage’.
‘The NOS leaders told me her illness was happening because she was in sin’, he wrote.
Brain, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, denies one count of rape and 36 counts of indecent assault between 1981 and 1995.
The trial continues.
