Church of England 'cult' priest Chris Brain faces new rape charges in London court

Priest Chris Brain, already convicted of sexual offences, faces new rape and assault charges. A London court heard he ran a cult-like Sheffield movement to exploit young women.

Sheffield 'cult' leader Brain back in dock over rape and assault allegations

A Church of England priest who built what prosecutors describe as a "cult" within his Sheffield congregation has gone on trial again, accused of raping and sexually assaulting four women, bbc.com reports.

Chris Brain, 69, of Wilmslow in Cheshire, appeared at Inner London Crown Court on Friday facing one count of rape and four counts of indecent assault. He denies all charges.

The jury was told Brain had already been found guilty at a previous trial of indecent assault against "numerous" members of the Nine O'Clock Service (NOS), a radical Christian movement he led in Sheffield throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

A "groundbreaking" service turned closed sect

Prosecutor Tim Clark KC told the court that NOS initially earned the Church of England's approval, drawing young Christians to services that combined live music, striking visuals and progressive theology between 1986 and 1995. The congregation, Clark said, "presented itself as a progressive force for good" before evolving into a "closed and controlled group" dominated entirely by Brain.

Members severed ties with friends and family and grew "utterly dependent" on the organisation, Clark told jurors. They became "terrified" of being cast out if they were considered insufficiently committed.

Some women were assigned to a "homebase team" that cared for Brain, his wife and their young daughter. Those women were placed on a rota to "help the defendant get to bed" with sexual favours, while others were summoned to provide sexual massages, the prosecutor said.

"This was a cult, in which the young women were reduced to such an emotional reliance on the defendant's approval that they no longer had the capacity to freely consent to the sexual behaviour involved," Clark told the jury.

"I thought it was more"

NOS collapsed in 1995 after a former member alerted Church of England leaders to Brain's conduct. When the Diocese of Sheffield confronted him over allegations he had abused up to 40 women, Brain reportedly replied: "I thought it was more."

Brain subsequently resigned from the priesthood after acknowledging in a 1995 BBC television documentary that he had been "involved in improper sexual conduct with a number of women." Clark said Brain continues to maintain that all sexual activity was consensual.

The prosecutor challenged that position, arguing it was impossible for the women to have given genuine consent given "the cult-like domineering nature of the defendant's control over them."

Groomed by a "mouthpiece for God"

Clark told the jury that Brain's alleged victims had been "groomed" by a man they regarded as a "mouthpiece for God." One woman, who gave the priest topless massages, told police she felt she would be "failing as a Christian" if she turned him down. Another, who told police Brain pushed her down onto a bed and raped her, described being "brainwashed" and made financially dependent on him.

The jury heard that Brain's earlier convictions — covering "a large number" of indecent assault charges involving "numerous members of NOS" — demonstrated a "propensity, or a tendency, to abuse his position within the church to sexually assault young women," in Clark's words.

Brain continues to deny the charges for which he was previously convicted, the court was also told. The current trial continues.

Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)