Priest abused 13 women in church cult, court told

A priest who led a "cult" within the Church of England sexually assaulted a "staggering" number of women in his congregation, a court heard.

Chris Brain expected victims to "put him to bed" with "sexual favours" in the bedroom of his family home, jurors in his trial were told.

Prosecutor Tim Clark KC said the women lived in "absolute terror of being ostracised" from the Nine O'Clock Service (NOS), an influential evangelical church movement led by Mr Brain in Sheffield in the 1980s and 1990s.

Mr Brain, 68, now of Park Road in Wilmslow, Cheshire, is on trial at Inner London Crown Court for 36 indecent assaults and one rape against 13 women. He denies all the charges.

NOS was initially celebrated by Church of England leaders for its "ground-breaking" nightclub-style services which incorporated live music and multimedia to attract young people to St Thomas Church, Mr Clark told the jury as he opened the prosecution's case on Tuesday.

Mr Clark said the group, which later moved to Ponds Forge sports complex as the service's popularity grew, "presented itself as a progressive force for good" which engaged with local communities and environmental issues.

But the prosecutor told the jury behind the scenes NOS was a "closed and controlled group which the defendant dominated and abused his position first as a leader and then as an ordained priest to sexually assault a staggering number of women from his congregation".

He said the group "became a cult" in which members were encouraged to cut themselves off from family and friends, leaving them "utterly dependent" on NOS and "desperate for the attention and praise" of its leader Mr Brain.

The court heard Mr Brain told one of his alleged victims he was helping her to "heal from her sexual repression" and urged another to use her "sexual power" to "glorify God".

The jury heard some young women who joined the movement were recruited to a "homebase team" which looked after Mr Brain, his wife and their daughter in their Sheffield house, where the defendant was "seen to be surrounded by attractive women" wearing lingerie or other revealing clothing.

One woman who joined the team - referred to as "the Lycra lovelies" or "the Lycra nuns" - told a police interview she was warned she would be excluded if she disobeyed Mr Brain.

The court heard another woman, who joined NOS as a student, said she had been required to "separate from her former life and accept NOS as her new family".

Some of Mr Brain's alleged victims told police they felt they had been "brainwashed" and "groomed" by him.

Mr Brain would "suddenly appear" beside female members as they walked in the street and ask them to get into his car, the jury heard.

Mr Clark said: "Those who did not keep the defendant happy would find themselves estranged from the group - this was incredibly disconcerting to young impressionable women who had become emotionally dependent on NOS and, as a result, highly vulnerable."

A number of the assaults are alleged to have taken place as the women gave Mr Brain massages at his house.

The court heard one woman was led to believe the massages - which included stroking and kissing - to be part of Mr Brain's "mission" of "developing their sexuality".

The same alleged victim told police of an occasion when Mr Brain had suddenly climbed on top of her to recreate a rape scene in a film they had been watching, stating that he "liked that bit".

Church leaders confronted Mr Brain in 1995 after a NOS member informed them the defendant had put women on "a rota" to put him into bed, the court heard.

Told by Stephen Lowe, then archdeacon of Sheffield, it was alleged he had abused up to 40 women, Mr Brain replied "I thought it was more", the trial heard.

The jury heard Mr Brain had admitted in a BBC documentary in 1995 to having "improper sexual conduct with a number of women". He resigned his holy orders two days before the programme was broadcast.

Mr Clark said Mr Brain was likely to tell the jury any sexual contact with the women was consensual.

The prosecutor said: "In short, the defence case appears to be, to quote the Life Of Brian: 'He's not the Messiah, he's just a very naughty boy'."

But Mr Clark said "any capacity to consent" had been taken from the women "by the domineering nature of the defendant, by his control over their entire lives and by their absolute terror of being ostracised".

The alleged offences are said to have taken place between 1981 and 1995.

The Church of England fast-tracked Mr Brain's ordination as a priest in 1991 after NOS attracted hundreds of young people to its congregation.

The court heard NOS spent "large sums of money" to obtain robes worn by the actor Robert De Niro in the film The Mission for Mr Brain to wear in his ordination ceremony.

The trial, which is expected to last six to eight weeks, continues.

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